ATTOM Ranks Best Counties for Buying Single-Family Rentals in 2023
Highest Potential SFR Returns in Indian River, Collier, Wayne, Mercer, Charlotte Counties; Best Returns Concentrated in South, Midwest and Northeast, Lowest in West; Rental Returns Increase From 2022 in About 90 Percent of Counties Analyzed, Reversing Years of Decline IRVINE, Calif. – Mar. 16, 2023 — ATTOM, a leading curator of land, property, and real estate data, today released its Q1 2023 Single-Family Rental Market report, which ranks the best U.S. markets for buying single-family rental properties in 2023. The report analyzed single-family rental returns in 212 U.S. counties with a population of at least 100,000 and sufficient rental and home price data. The analysis for this report incorporated median rents on 3-bedroom properties and median single-family home prices collected from ATTOM's nationwide property database, as well as publicly recorded sales deed data licensed by ATTOM (see full methodology below). The report shows that the average annual gross rental yield on three-bedroom properties, (annualized gross rent income divided by purchase price) among the 212 counties analyzed is projected to be 7.5 percent in 2023. That is up from an average of 6.7 percent in 2022 in those same markets and marked the first time since at least 2019 that the figure rose across the country. The single-family rental yield is increasing from 2022 to 2023 in 91 percent of those counties, after declining from 2021 to 2022 in 72 percent of them. With rental yields on the rise, rents are increasing faster than home prices across most of the country. From 2022 to 2023, three-bedroom rents rose more than single-family home prices in 192, or 91 percent, of the markets analyzed. Rents commonly have risen by around 5 percent to 20 percent over the past year, while changes in home values have typically ranged from a 5 percent loss to a 5 percent gain. "The broader housing market didn't fare nearly as well in 2022 as it did in 2021. Prices finally hit the wall, at least temporarily. But that appears to be benefitting the growing number of investors around the U.S. who rent out single-family properties," said Rob Barber, chief executive officer at ATTOM. "Rents for single-family homes are growing while prices have flattened out, which has helped boost yields for landlords for the first time in at least several years." The improving scenario for single-family landlords has come following a year in which the U.S. housing-market changed course. The nation's 11-year price runup abruptly stalled as home-mortgage rates doubled to near 7 percent, consumer price inflation remained at 40-year highs and the stock market fell. All those factors cut into what prospective home buyers could afford, helping to lower the nationwide home price by 8 percent in the second half of 2022 but allowing rental yields to rise. Additional price declines "could cut both ways for landlords," Barber added. "They could raise yields even more but also rekindle super-heated demand for home purchases, away from rentals." Top rental returns in Indian River, Collier, Wayne, Mercer and Charlotte counties, as well as other parts of South, Midwest and Northeast regions Counties with the highest potential annual gross rental yields for 2023 are Indian River County, FL, in the Sebastian-Vero Beach metro area (15 percent); Collier County, FL, in the Naples metro area (14.7 percent); Wayne County, MI, in the Detroit metro area (13 percent); Mercer County, NJ, in the Trenton metro area (12.7 percent) and Charlotte County, FL, in the Punta Gorda metro area (12 percent). Aside from Wayne County, the highest potential annual gross rental yields in 2023 among counties with a population of at least 1 million are in Cook County (Chicago), IL (11.5 percent); Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), OH (10.1 percent); Oakland County, MI (outside Detroit) (9.1 percent) and Palm Beach County (West Palm Beach), FL (8.5 percent). Among the top 50 rental returns for counties analyzed in 2023, 29 are in the South, with another 13 in the Midwest and eight in the Northeast. None are in the West. Rental returns increase in most counties analyzed Potential annual gross rental yields for 2023 have increased compared to 2022 in 192 of the 212 counties analyzed in the report (91 percent). They are led by Orange County, CA (outside Los Angeles) (yield up 42.7 percent); San Mateo County, CA (outside San Francisco) (up 41.6 percent); Suffolk County (Boston), MA (up 41.2 percent); New Castle County (Wilmington), DE (up 40.5 percent) and San Francisco County, CA (up 38.1 percent). Aside from Orange County, the biggest increases in potential annual gross rental yields from 2022 to 2023 among counties with a population of at least 1 million are in Miami-Dade County, FL (yield up 34.1 percent); Broward County (Fort Lauderdale), FL (up 32.4 percent); Santa Clara County (San Jose), CA (up 30.1 percent) and Palm Beach County (West Palm Beach), FL (up 29.5 percent). The only counties with a population of 1 million or more showing decreases in potential gross rental yields from 2022 to 2023 are St. Louis County, MO (yield down 19.8 percent); Nassau County, NY (outside New York City) (down 2.2 percent) and Collin County (Plano), TX (down 0.4 percent). Lowest rental returns in San Francisco, San Jose, Provo, Honolulu and Washington, D.C., metro areas, along with other western markets Counties with the lowest potential annual gross returns for 2023 on three-bedroom rentals are Santa Clara County, CA, in the San Jose metro area (3.3 percent); San Mateo County, CA, in the San Francisco metro area (3.7 percent); Utah County, CA, in the Provo metro area (3.8 percent); Honolulu County in the Honolulu, HI, metro area (4.2 percent) and Loudoun County, VA (4.2 percent). Aside from Santa Clara and Honolulu counties, the lowest potential annual gross rental yields in 2023 among counties with a population of at least 1 million are in Alameda County (Oakland), CA (4.3 percent); Fairfax County, VA (outside Washington, D.C.) (4.3 percent) and Montgomery County, MD (outside Washington, D.C.) (4.5 percent). Among the bottom 50 potential rental returns for counties analyzed 2023, 34 are in the West and 14 are in the South. The Northeast and the Midwest have just one each. Rents rising faster than wages in two-thirds of counties measured Rental amounts are rising faster than wages in 147 of the 212 counties analyzed (69 percent), including Los Angeles County, CA; Cook County (Chicago), IL; Harris County (Houston), TX; San Diego County, CA, and Orange County, CA (outside Los Angeles). Wages are increasing faster than rents in 65 of the 212 counties analyzed (31 percent), including Maricopa County (Phoenix), AZ; Dallas County, TX; Clark County (Las Vegas), NV; Tarrant County (Fort Worth), TX, and Hillsborough County (Tampa), FL. Rents rising faster than home prices in 91 percent of nation Rental amounts are rising faster than home prices in 192 of the 212 counties analyzed (91 percent). They include Los Angeles County, CA; Cook County (Chicago), IL; Harris County (Houston), TX; Maricopa County (Phoenix), AZ, and San Diego County, CA. Home prices are going up faster than rental amounts in just 20 of the counties analyzed (9 percent), including Nassau County, NY (outside New York City); Collin County (Plano), TX; Pima County (Tucson), AZ; St. Louis County, MO, and Westchester County, NY (outside New York City). Wages rising faster than prices in more than three-quarters of markets Wages are increasing faster than home prices in 169 of the 212 counties analyzed (80 percent), including Los Angeles County, CA; Cook County (Chicago), IL; Harris County (Houston), TX; Maricopa County (Phoenix), AZ, and San Diego County, CA. Home prices are increasing faster than wages in 43 of the counties analyzed (20 percent). They include Collin County (Plano), TX; St. Louis County, MO; Westchester County, NY (outside New York City); Hartford County, CT, and Macomb County, MI (outside Detroit). Best SFR growth markets include Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland The report identified 17 "SFR Growth" counties where wages grew over the past year and potential 2023 annual gross rental yields exceed 10 percent. The 17 SFR Growth markets include Cook County (Chicago), IL; Wayne County (Detroit), MI; Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), OH; Shelby County (Memphis), TN, and New Haven County, CT. Methodology For this report, ATTOM looked at U.S. counties with a population of 100,000 or more and sufficient home price and rental rate data. ATTOM used single-family home price data from its publicly recorded sales deed data, as well as three-bedroom median priced rental data, collected and licensed by ATTOM. The analysis also incorporated second-quarter 2022 average weekly wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (most recent available). About ATTOM ATTOM provides premium property data to power products that improve transparency, innovation, efficiency and disruption in a data-driven economy. ATTOM multi-sources property tax, deed, mortgage, foreclosure, environmental risk, natural hazard, and neighborhood data for more than 155 million U.S. residential and commercial properties covering 99 percent of the nation's population. A rigorous data management process involving more than 20 steps validates, standardizes, and enhances the real estate data collected by ATTOM, assigning each property record with a persistent, unique ID — the ATTOM ID. The 30TB ATTOM Data Warehouse fuels innovation in many industries including mortgage, real estate, insurance, marketing, government and more through flexible data delivery solutions that include bulk file licenses, property data APIs, real estate market trends, property navigator and more. Also, introducing our newest innovative solution, that offers immediate access and streamlines data management – ATTOM Cloud.

Room with a view? Renters can now use interactive property maps to choose their apartment on Zillow
Zillow's new integration lets renters know exactly where their next apartment is located within the building SEATTLE, March 15, 2023 -- Apartment hunters using Zillow can now see the exact location of available units — and even what their view would be — at thousands of participating properties. Zillow Rentals' new integration with Engrain's interactive map platform lets renters understand what floor an available apartment is on; if it's facing a shared outdoor space, like a garden or pool; or if the view is of a street or parking lot. The interactive maps also allow renters to click on available units to book a tour or request to apply, in much the same way they would select concert tickets when buying online. Engrain's Unit Map technology is currently used on more than 3,600 apartment building pages on Zillow and available to renters using Zillow on their desktop or through the mobile app. "Regardless of how detailed the apartment description is or how beautiful the listing photos are, a renter can't get a full grasp of the surroundings until they take the time to do an in-person tour, until now," says Michael Sherman, vice president of Zillow Rentals. "For renters who have specific preferences like wanting a nice view or being away from the busy elevator bank, Unit Maps are a major time-saver. They can help a renter narrow down which units they want to see in person." Zillow's integration with Engrain is another example of how the company is meeting renter demand for digital tools. Zillow features like 3D Home® tours, and other building information such as Walk Score® and Bike Score® help renters quickly narrow their options and avoid wasting time touring apartments that are not a good fit. When renters are ready to commit to the in-person tour, they can do it with the click of a button. Zillow recently announced automated tour scheduling for apartment-seeking renters, allowing them to book a tour in the same way they book a restaurant reservation. "We are investing in integrations and products to make the apartment hunt easier and help people get into their next home more seamlessly," Sherman said. "Renters want and deserve as much information as possible during their search, and by the time they're ready for an in-person tour or to apply, the property managers will know they're working with a renter who's serious about their move." About Zillow Group Zillow Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: Z and ZG) is reimagining real estate to make it easier to unlock life's next chapter. As the most visited real estate website in the United States, Zillow® and its affiliates offer customers an on-demand experience for selling, buying, renting, or financing with transparency and ease. Zillow Group's affiliates and subsidiaries include Zillow®; Zillow Premier Agent®; Zillow Home Loans™; Zillow Closing Services™; Trulia®; Out East®; StreetEasy®; HotPads®; and ShowingTime+SM, which houses ShowingTime®, Bridge Interactive®, dotloop®, and interactive floor plans. Zillow Home Loans, LLC is an Equal Housing Lender, NMLS #10287 (www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org). About Engrain Engrain is transforming the way people find, lease, and manage property. A recognized leader in next-generation touring technology and map-based data visualization software, Engrain's products boast advanced integrations and technical flexibility for any real estate technology stack. Our SightMap and TouchTour product lines amplify the online user experience when searching, touring and leasing properties. Our Asset Intelligence product is derived from SightMap by influencing bottom line results for property management, builders, developers and owners of real estate in the US. A nearly 80 billion dollar industry, multifamily real estate spans over 150k locations in the United States alone. Engrain's 5% market share, with virtually no direct competitors, is an indicator of the available exponential growth planned in the coming years. For more information, visit engrain.com.

Happy Grasshopper Announces New Integration with Chime
Happy Grasshopper brings on new integration to help agents, brokers and teams who struggle with content solutions Mar. 10, 2023 -- Happy Grasshopper, the No. 1 content platform for agents and brokerages, launches a new integration with Chime – an all-in-one real estate solution that offers CRM, IDX, team management, lead generation and more bundled in a seamless, easy to use package. With this integration, Chime members can effortlessly send Happy Grasshopper's high-quality content to all segments of their database. This feature helps them increase their lead conversion rates, generate more referrals from past clients and sphere, and recruit the right agents for their teams or brokerages. "We have many customers on Chime and have always had great respect for their company. Partnering with them presented a great opportunity to get more content out there for realtors to help grow their business. We provide the content and handle all of the automated messaging for Chime and are happy this collaboration is happening," said Dan Stewart, CEO of Happy Grasshopper. Happy Grasshopper's mission is to connect the world in conversation. The platform executes communication touch points for their clients by creating specialized messaging that works to nurture relationships consistently. With this integration, agents won't have to think about the content they want to create, their system will provide the market-driven and market-specific content Chime needs. "One of the areas where agents and brokers really struggle is finding the right content for all their marketing efforts, whether it is for Social Media, email campaigns or SMS to their database, and we at Chime are not experts so to have Happy Grasshopper as an integration partner is great and makes total sense. They also work very closely with some of our industry partners, and we want to make sure we deliver the best all-round solution for our customers," said Stuart Sim, VP of Industry Development at Chime. Chime is a full platform for real estate agents. They currently have 50,000 customers and are looking at growing their user base substantially in the next two years. The recipe for many agents and brokers to sell their listings has always been limited to posting their new and sold listings. Agents and brokers need content support that Happy Grasshopper provides to generate more leads and sales. HG will provide the expert view needed to build marketing campaigns that are the most effective for those agents. To learn more about the integration, visit happygrasshopper.com/hgrecruits. About Chime Chime is an all-in-one real estate solution that offers CRM, IDX, team management, lead generation and more bundled in a seamless, easy to use package. Our mission is to provide the best AI-powered tools, and facilitate the most valuable, professional collaboration for real estate professionals, helping them prosper in a tech-enhanced, hyper-competitive world. About Happy Grasshopper Happy Grasshopper is a technology-leveraged marketing company that creates and delivers content that fosters conversations with prospects, customers, and others through a variety of media (email, text, ringless voicemail drops, handwritten cards, and social media posts!). For more information, visit happygrasshopper.com.

More Americans Own Their Homes, but Black-White Homeownership Rate Gap is Biggest in a Decade, NAR Report Finds
WASHINGTON (March 2, 2023) – While the U.S. homeownership rate has continually increased during the last decade – to 65.5% in 2021 (from 64.7% in 2011) – the Black homeownership rate has not kept pace with increases of other racial groups. Also, people of color endure significant buying challenges throughout and even after their home purchase, according to a report released today by the National Association of Realtors®. The 2023 Snapshot of Race and Home Buying in America examines homeownership trends and challenges by race and location to explain the current racial disparities in the housing market. Leveraging NAR's latest Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers data, the report explores the characteristics of who purchases homes, why they purchase, what they purchase and the financial background of buyers by race. Homeownership Trends The report found there were about 9.2 million more homeowners in 2021 than a decade prior, but homeownership rates varied significantly by race. The Black American homeownership rate – 44% – increased less than half of 1 percentage point (43.6% in 2011) and continues to lag well behind Hispanic Americans (50.6%), Asian Americans (62.8%) and White Americans (72.7%). Consequently, the homeownership gap between Black Americans and any other racial group has grown, especially when compared to White households (29%), representing the largest homeownership gap in 10 years (26% in 2011). Conversely, Asian Americans (5 percentage points) and Hispanic Americans (4 percentage points) experienced the biggest homeownership rate gains over the last decade. The Asian American homeownership rate of 62.8% is an all-time high. White American homeownership grew by nearly 3 percentage points and has been consistently around 70% since 2017. "Unfortunately, the incredible affordability challenges of the last year have hit minority home buyers more than White buyers," said Jessica Lautz, NAR deputy chief economist and vice president of research. "Black buyers are more likely to be first-time buyers, who are more sensitive to changes in mortgage interest rates, while White buyers are more likely to have housing equity to rely on as they make a housing trade." Racial Inequalities in Housing Affordability Black homeowners spend more of their income to own their homes than all racial groups, with 30% being cost-burdened – defined as spending more than 30% of their income on housing. That's followed by Hispanic Americans (28%), Asian Americans (26%) and White Americans (21%). More than half of Black renter households (54%) spend more than 30% of their income on rent, the most of any racial group. About 30% of Black renters are severely cost-burdened – defined as spending more than 50% of their income on rent – representing nearly 2.5 million households. By contrast, 22% of White renters are severely cost-burdened, representing 5.1 million households. After comparing the qualifying income to purchase the typical home with the median income of renter households, NAR estimates that while 17% of White renters can afford to buy the median-priced home, only 9% of Black renters can nationwide. "Even among successful home buyers, Black Americans have lower household incomes, which narrows the available pool of inventory they may be able to afford and makes their journey into homeownership even more difficult in this limited housing inventory environment," Lautz added. Racial Disparities in the Mortgage Market Beyond affordability, Black and Hispanic home buyers also face extra challenges in getting a mortgage. Black Americans have the highest denial rates for purchase and refinance loans. According to Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data, 20% of Black and 15% of Hispanic loan applicants were denied mortgages, compared with about 11% of White and 10% of Asian applicants. Further, denial rates for Black Americans are even higher for home improvement loans. Black Americans were denied applications for nearly 17% of loans for a home purchase, 17% of loans for refinancing and 51% of loans for home improvement. Homebuyer Demographics by Race/Ethnicity Using data from its latest Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers report, NAR analyzed the characteristics of recent home buyers, their reasons for purchasing, the steps they took in the homebuying process, and the ways buyers financed their home purchase based on race. Among all home buyers, White Americans made up the largest share (88%), followed by Hispanic Americans (8%), Black Americans (3%), Asian Americans (2%) and other (3%). For down payments, Black Americans drew down 401(k)/pension funds more than any other group (16%), which increased 2 percentage points from last year (14%). Asian Americans received gifts (22%) and loans (7%) from a relative or friend more than all other racial groups. Hispanic Americans had the largest share of student loan debt (46%), followed by Black Americans (33%), White Americans (17%) and Asian Americans (13%). Discrimination in Transactions In addition to being asked about their recent homebuying experience, home buyers were asked if they had experienced or witnessed discrimination during their real estate transaction. Half of Hispanic American home buyers said they experienced steering toward or away from specific neighborhoods, followed by 29% of White, 12% of Black and less than 1% of Asian American home buyers. Forty-six percent of Hispanic American home buyers experienced discrimination by the refusal of a homeowner or agent to show property, followed by 24% of Black, 15% of White and less than 1% of Asian Americans. Thirty-nine percent of Black American home buyers reported discrimination through home appraisal, followed by 17% of Asian, 9% of White and less than 1% of Hispanic Americans. NAR Advocacy NAR works to ensure Realtors® are active leaders in the fight to close racial homeownership gaps. NAR co-chairs the steering committee for the Black Homeownership Collaborative, which has outlined a seven-point plan to create 3 million net new black homeowners by 2030. NAR has also enhanced the real estate industry's efforts to end housing bias. Its "ACT!" fair housing plan, launched in 2019, emphasizes "Accountability, Culture Change and Training" to advance fair housing in the industry. NAR's interactive training platform, Fairhaven, puts real estate professionals in simulated situations where discrimination in a real estate transaction can occur. Also, the association's implicit bias video and classroom trainings offer strategies to help Realtors® provide equal professional service to every customer or client. To increase the nation's housing inventory, NAR advocates that all levels of government: support the construction of housing that is affordable to the typical consumer; preserve, expand and create tax incentives to renovate distressed properties and convert unused commercial space to residential units; and encourage and incentivize zoning reform. Expanding new-home construction by an additional 550,000 units a year for 10 years would create 2.8 million new jobs and generate more than $400 billion in economic activity. NAR and the Rosen Consulting Group's Housing is Critical Infrastructure: Social and Economic Benefits of Building More Housing report examines the causes of America's housing shortage and provides a range of actions that can effectively address this long-time problem. View NAR's 2023 Snapshot of Race and Home Buying in America here. The National Association of Realtors® is America's largest trade association, representing more than 1.5 million members involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries. The term Realtor® is a registered collective membership mark that identifies a real estate professional who is a member of the National Association of Realtors® and subscribes to its strict Code of Ethics.

Curbio Launches First-of-its-Kind Mobile App, Enabling Sellers to Maximize the Value of their Home Though ROI-Driven Improvements
The Curbio app empowers realtors and home sellers with real-time estimates on pre-listing home improvements and ROI data POTOMAC, Md., Feb. 23, 2023 -- Curbio, Inc., the leading pay-at-closing home improvement solution for the real estate industry, today announces the launch of its new mobile app. The app allows real estate agents and home sellers to instantly get estimates for pre-listing home improvement costs and projected ROI, so they can unlock the true value of their home with smart, ROI-driven updates. Curbio's new mobile app is the first of its kind, providing a level of speed, convenience and pricing transparency that hasn't previously been seen in the home improvement industry. At the touch of a button, realtors and homeowners can get an immediate price estimate for repairs, updates and renovations and the estimated ROI. Users can choose to begin work immediately with Curbio, or they can simply use this data to make an informed decision about pre-listing and pre-sale home improvements. When they download the Curbio mobile app, users simply enter the property address, square footage and number of stories. From there, they are able to choose which home improvement projects they are interested in. Projects are divided into the following categories: kitchen, bathroom, flooring, paint, interior and exterior. Once projects are selected, they will immediately view an estimated cost of improvements along with the projected ROI. This information can be used to request a project proposal from Curbio and work with them to execute the updates and pay for the work at closing with zero fees or interest. "Pre-listing home improvements are critical for selling for the highest possible price in this increasingly competitive housing market. With sales prices down nationally, and with increased demand for move-in-ready properties, sellers need to update their home before listing to sell quickly and for top dollar," said Olivia Mariani, Chief Marketing Officer at Curbio. "Most people don't have access to reliable data to understand what pre-listing projects cost or which updates truly increase the value of their home. The only way to really get an estimate is to have a contractor come out to your home, they measure, they take a few weeks to get back to you and you're not sure if the quote is competitive. With our new mobile app, homeowners are empowered with data that will allow them to make an informed decision about pre-listing home improvements, so they can get the most value out of their home without the hassle of traditional home improvement." The price estimate and ROI data displayed in the app has been compiled based on Curbio's thousands of completed projects. The information generated is customized based on market, project size and project type. The Curbio mobile app is the first and only app within the home improvement space to generate accurate pricing and ROI estimates based on actual completed project data. In addition to pre-listing estimates, the Curbio mobile app also offers estimates on repairs that come up during inspections. Agents and their clients can now upload an inspection report right to the app and Curbio will provide a same-day, no-obligation estimate on the repairs noted in the report. This new inspection repair tool helps agents, buyers and sellers get to closing faster. Curbio's new mobile app is free to download and available for both Android and iPhone users through Google Play and the App Store. To learn more about Curbio, visit www.curbio.com. About Curbio Curbio is on a mission to help real estate agents fix and update homes before they go on the market, so they sell quickly and for the best price, with zero payment due until closing. Founded in 2017, Curbio has quickly become the largest national home improvement company dedicated to pre-listing repairs, updates, and renovations. Curbio has modernized home improvement with an easy-to-use app that accelerates project timelines by 50%, while removing the delays, uncertainties and other frustrations that have plagued home improvement for decades. Their rapid time to listing, coupled with a turn-key approach and project ROI expertise, has made Curbio the most trusted fix first, pay-at-closing home improvement partner to thousands of realtors and brokerages nationwide, including eXp realty, RE/MAX, HomeServices of America, Long & Foster, @properties and many more.

January Rental Report: Only One Major Market Remains Below $1,000 Threshold
Oklahoma City, Okla.; Louisville, Ky.; and Birmingham, Ala. led the nation with the cheapest monthly rent payments in January SANTA CLARA, Calif., Feb. 24, 2023 -- The financial pain of shelling out sky-high rent is a reality for many, with median prices in some U.S. metro areas at nearly $3,000 a month. Yet, in certain metros among the country's 50 largest markets, renters can still find relative affordability, according to the Realtor.com® Monthly Rental Report released today. Oklahoma City, Okla. is the only metro among the 50 largest in the nation where renters can find a median-priced apartment for less than $1,000 a month. The report showed that Oklahoma City offered the lowest monthly rental price in January, at $982. There are 10 markets where median monthly rents are lower than $1,300, according to the report. Half are in the Midwest, four are in the South, and one is in the Northeast. None are in the West. The least expensive markets are: Oklahoma City, Okla. - $982 Louisville, Ky. - $1,167 Birmingham, Ala. - $1,178 Rochester, N.Y. - $1,235 Columbus, Ohio - $1,242 Indianapolis, Ind. - $1,266 Memphis, Tenn. - $1,274 St. Louis, Mo. - $1,279 Cleveland, Ohio - $1,290 Kansas City, Mo./Kan. - $1,298 Renters looking to take advantage of the best possible prices should move quickly. While the rents in these metros are the lowest among the 50 largest, for many of them, prices are increasing at a faster rate than in the rest of the country. "With high rents across the country, places that offer relative affordability tend to be in high demand, which means more competition and that these lower prices might not last," said Realtor.com® Chief Economist Danielle Hale. "Many of these metros have fewer available rental homes than previous months, and fewer apartments to choose from means prices are likely to go up. Cities including Indianapolis, Birmingham, Columbus, Kansas City, Cleveland, and Rochester are among the more affordable metros that experienced the fastest year-over-year price increases in January 2023, leaving few metros that are maintaining their current level of affordability." Many of these areas also have less rental availability than in past years, suggesting that affordable metros are increasing in popularity. For example, in the fourth quarter of 2022, the average rental vacancy rate across these least expensive markets was 7.6% — a significant drop from the 9.7% vacancy rate in the fourth quarter 2017. However, seven of the most-affordable areas still had greater vacancy rates than the country's average, which was last tracked at 5.8% nationwide. Nationwide, rent growth for studio to two-bedroom properties continued to slow. Median rent was down 2.9% year-over-year, the lowest growth rate in 22 months. In comparison, January 2022 rent was up 16.2% from the year prior. Last month was the twelfth month of cooling rent growth and the sixth month in a row with a single-digit rate increase. The median asking rent in the 50 largest metros declined to $1,726, down by $7 from last month and $80 less than the August 2022 peak of $1,806. Yet, rental prices are still up 20.6% ($295 higher) from pre-pandemic January 2020. Rental Data – 50 Largest Metropolitan Areas – January 2023 Methodology Rental data as of January for studio, 1-bedroom, or 2-bedroom units advertised as for-rent on Realtor.com®. Rental units include apartments as well as private rentals (condos, townhomes, single-family homes). We use rental sources that reliably report data each month within the top 50 largest metropolitan areas. Realtor.com® began publishing regular monthly rental trends reports in October 2020 with data history stretching back to March 2019. With the release of its January rent report, Realtor.com® incorporated a new and improved methodology for capturing and reporting more comprehensive rental listing trends and metrics. The new methodology is expected to yield a cleaner, more representative and more consistent measurement of rental listings and trends at both the national and local level. The methodology has been adjusted to better represent the true cost of primary housing for renters. Most areas across the country will see minor changes with a smaller handful of areas seeing larger updates. As a result of these changes, the rental data released since January 2023 will not be directly comparable with previous releases and Realtor.com® economics blog posts. However, future data releases, including historical data, will consistently apply the new methodology. About Realtor.com® Realtor.com® is an open real estate marketplace built for everyone. Realtor.com® pioneered the world of digital real estate more than 25 years ago. Today, through its website and mobile apps, Realtor.com® is a trusted guide for consumers, empowering more people to find their way home by breaking down barriers, helping them make the right connections, and creating confidence through expert insights and guidance. For professionals, Realtor.com® is a trusted partner for business growth, offering consumer connections and branding solutions that help them succeed in today's on-demand world. Realtor.com® is operated by News Corp [Nasdaq: NWS, NWSA] [ASX: NWS, NWSLV] subsidiary Move, Inc. For more information, visit Realtor.com.

NAR Calls for Applications to Its 2023 Volunteering Works Grant and Mentoring
CHICAGO (February 15, 2023) – The National Association of Realtors® is now accepting applications for its Volunteering Works grant and mentoring program. The program, funded by Wells Fargo Home Lending, matches mentors with Realtors® who have demonstrated a commitment to public service and are looking to enhance their charitable efforts. "Mentoring is not just about sharing knowledge, it's about investing in the future," said NAR President Kenny Parcell, a Realtor® from Spanish Fork, Utah, and broker-owner of Equity Real Estate Utah. "It is our goal to empower and inspire the next generation of leaders. The Volunteering Works program provides mentorship and guidance to Realtors® so they can make a lasting impact on the communities they serve through their nonprofit work." All Realtors® involved in charitable efforts with growth potential are encouraged to apply. Five Volunteering Works recipients will be awarded a $1,000 grant to help improve their community programs. Recipients will also receive a year of one-on-one mentoring from a member of NAR's Good Neighbor Society, which is comprised of past Good Neighbor Awards recipients. The Volunteering Works program is made possible thanks to the generous support of Wells Fargo Home Lending. "We proudly support Volunteering Works, which recognizes and mentors Realtors® who are looking to deepen their impact in their communities," said Sue Barber, national sales manager for Wells Fargo Home Lending. "There are many individuals and communities that are underserved, and we applaud the efforts of those looking to change that. It is our honor to recognize and salute the outstanding work being done by this rising cohort of leaders." The deadline to apply is March 30, 2023. Applicants must be NAR members. For a Volunteering Works entry form, visit nar.realtor/gna and click on the "Volunteering Works Application" button.

Matterport Launches Digital Pro to Reinvent Real Estate Marketing with New All-in-One Solution
New offering helps real estate agents win listings and sell homes faster by creating an immersive 3D tour, HDR photos, and detailed floor plans for a low, flat rate SUNNYVALE, CA — Matterport, Inc., today announced Digital Pro, an all-in-one marketing solution for real estate agents, available now in the United States. Digital Pro combines the innovation of Matterport's 3D digital twin technology with integrated marketing and content production services to create the industry's most affordable, comprehensive marketing package to help real estate professionals win more listings and sell homes faster. With a single appointment, Matterport will produce professional-grade HDR photos, a 2D floor plan, 3D tour, and a preview video for customers, all delivered within 1-2 business days at a low flat rate. According to a recent trends report by the National Association of REALTORS® Research Group, 67% percent of home buyers consider floor plans useful in a listing. Another poll found 89% consider 3D Virtual Tours as important to the buying process. With Digital Pro, real estate professionals can produce all of the media assets needed to market, sell and promote their properties through a single partner. By offering a full suite of visual marketing tools in a simple package, agents can focus more on winning listings and selling homes faster, raising the bar for what buyers and sellers can expect from a home listing. The innovation behind Digital Pro is Matterport's state-of-the-art digital twins, which create the most accurate and immersive virtual homebuying experience on the market. Capturing each space in 4K 3D, a single digital twin can produce a floor plan, 3D virtual tour, and any number of HDR photos for every room, from any angle, at any time. With Digital Pro, any real estate professional can harness the power of digital twins in their marketing toolkit, allowing them to market more properties, more efficiently, and more easily, to the most interested buyers. "Digital Pro addresses an important unmet need for our customers to make our industry-leading digital twin technology more affordable and accessible to every property listing. Digital Pro marks an important first step in realizing that vision," said RJ Pittman, Chairman and CEO of Matterport. "Matterport is now your convenient, one-stop shop for all property marketing needs with a state of the art solution for every type of property that's just a click away." "Our mission has always been to provide services that empower real estate professionals to offer a smoother buying and selling experience," said Brian Balduf, Vice President, Services, Matterport. "Matterport is often thought of as a premium service most suited for commercial spaces or luxury listings. With Digital Pro, we've packaged the value that sellers and agents have come to expect from Matterport in a low cost offering fit for most listings." The Digital Pro package includes: HDR Photos: From the digital twin, Professional Matterport Image Specialists compose the most stunning views of all the major selling points in the property. 3D Tour: An immersive 3D model enables prospective buyers and any of their friends and family to virtually tour the property from anywhere at any time, without ever having to leave the comfort of their own home or disrupt the seller or their plans. 2D Floor Plan: Dimensionally accurate, easy to view floor plans are automatically created from the visual and spatial data associated with the digital twin, presenting properties in a simple layout that helps illustrate flow. Preview Video: A 10-15 second video provides a quick view of the property, ideal for promoting listings on social media or in advertising. To learn more about Matterport's Digital Pro offering, visit: http://www.matterport.com/digital-pro. About Matterport Matterport, Inc. (Nasdaq: MTTR) is leading the digital transformation of the built world. Our groundbreaking spatial data platform turns buildings into data to make every space more valuable and accessible. Millions of buildings in more than 177 countries have been transformed into immersive Matterport digital twins to improve every part of the building lifecycle from planning, construction, and operations to documentation, appraisal and marketing. Learn more at Matterport.com and visit our Discover page to browse a collection of digital twins captured by our customers.

For Love or Money? Realtor.com Survey Finds that Housing Costs Impact Romantic Decisions
Eighty percent of Gen Z respondents who have moved in with a romantic partner say that finances and/or logistics contributed to their decision SANTA CLARA, Calif., Feb. 13, 2023 -- Moving in with a romantic partner is a big step, and one that shouldn't be taken lightly. However, when it comes to taking the next step in their relationship, 63% of people who have moved in with a romantic partner said that their decision was impacted by finances and/or logistics. Realtor.com® and HarrisX surveyed 3,009 consumers to highlight how today's expensive housing market is impacting people's love lives. "Living with a romantic partner might bring a couple closer together, but it can also magnify potential issues in a relationship," said Clare Trapasso, executive news editor, Realtor.com®. "While the idea of splitting the rent or mortgage can be very attractive, it's important to have tough conversations with your partner and think through how living together will work before you take the plunge." Younger respondents were significantly more likely to be persuaded by money/logistics with 80% of Gen Z and 76% of Millennials saying that one or both of these things were a factor in moving in with a romantic partner. This is compared to 56% of Gen X, 44% of Baby Boomers who said the same thing. Will you be my… roommate? Unsurprisingly, among those who factored finances and/or logistics into their decision to move in with a partner, Gen Z respondents (56%) – who have faced notoriously high housing costs in their lifetime – were the most likely to say that saving money by splitting the rent/mortgage was a contributing factor. Additionally, 70% of all respondents who have moved in with a partner reported that they were able to save money by moving in. The most common amounts saved per month were: $1- $500 (27%) $501 - $1,000 (20%) $1,001 - $2,000 (13%) $2,001 - $5,000 (6%) More than $5,000 (4%) A significant percentage of respondents who have moved in with a partner moved into a home that one person already rented (37%) or owned (21%), while 30% decided to start fresh with a new rental and 9% took the leap directly into buying a home together. Don't go breaking my heart Not all relationships work out and living with a partner isn't always easy. Forty-two percent of people who have moved in with a romantic partner ended up regretting the move. Reasons included: The relationship didn't work out (48%) We moved too fast/rushed the decision (31%) Realized we weren't compatible for co-living (27%) It made it harder to break up (26%) When we broke up it was stressful to divide the things that we had purchased together (22%) The stress of living together hurt our relationship (22%) The logistics of moving out after a breakup were too difficult (19%) We broke up soon after moving in together (17%) "When you're renting or purchasing real estate together, it's important to make sure you're both financially protected," said Trapasso. "For example, if you're buying a home together as an unmarried couple, it may be a good idea to chat with a real estate attorney first to figure out what would happen with the home in the event that you broke up." Will you accept this contract? Nearly a third (31%) of survey respondents who have moved in with a partner signed a contract outlining what would happen in the event of a break-up. Younger respondents were significantly more likely to have signed a contract, with 54% of Gen Z and 47% of Millennials doing so. This suggests that younger generations might be more financially and/or legally savvy and understand the importance of protecting their investments. Methodology The survey was conducted online from Feb. 1-4, 2023 among 3,009 adults in the U.S. by HarrisX. The sampling margin of error of this poll is +/- 1.8 percentage points and larger for subgroups (including those who have moved in with a partner at +/- 2.3 percentage points). The results reflect a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults. Results were weighted for age by gender, region, race/ethnicity, and income where necessary to align them with their actual proportions in the population. About Realtor.com® Realtor.com® is an open real estate marketplace built for everyone. Realtor.com® pioneered the world of digital real estate more than 25 years ago. Today, through its website and mobile apps, Realtor.com® is a trusted guide for consumers, empowering more people to find their way home by breaking down barriers, helping them make the right connections, and creating confidence through expert insights and guidance. For professionals, Realtor.com® is a trusted partner for business growth, offering consumer connections and branding solutions that help them succeed in today's on-demand world. Realtor.com® is operated by News Corp [Nasdaq: NWS, NWSA] [ASX: NWS, NWSLV] subsidiary Move, Inc. For more information, visit Realtor.com®.

RESAAS Partners with ChatGPT to Revolutionize Real Estate Descriptions Using Artificial Intelligence
February 8, 2023 – Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada – RESAAS Services Inc., a leading provider of technology solutions for the real estate industry, has announced a partnership with OpenAI's ChatGPT to bring advanced artificial intelligence (A.I.) capabilities to real estate agents. This exciting new technology enables real estate agents subscribed to RESAAS to perform a variety of functions quickly, efficiently and easily. The initial launch focuses on generating property descriptions using A.I., saving real estate agents time and effort. This provides a more professional and engaging experience for potential buyers. This is a tremendous value-add to RESAAS agents subscribing to our paid PREMIUM and ULTIMATE plans. The integration of ChatGPT into the RESAAS platform will allow real estate agents to input key information about a property and receive a unique and accurate property description in just seconds. This new feature will eliminate the need for RESAAS agents to spend time and energy crafting property descriptions from scratch, allowing them to focus on other important aspects of the real estate process. "RESAAS is proud to partner with OpenAI and bring the power of A.I. to the real estate industry," said Tom Rossiter, CEO of RESAAS. "By combining the cutting-edge technology of ChatGPT with the vast amount of unique real estate data RESAAS generates, we are able to provide a valuable tool to help RESAAS agents succeed in an increasingly competitive market." This exciting new partnership will have a significant impact on the real estate industry and help RESAAS agents stay ahead of the curve. By providing real estate agents with an innovative tool that saves time and delivers professional results, RESAAS and ChatGPT are positioning themselves at the forefront of the industry.

Planitar Inc., the Makers of iGUIDE, Introduces Instant 3D Virtual Tour Product and AI Automated Floor Plan Drafting Technology
Planitar Inc. is proud to announce the launch of a new service, iGUIDE Preview. WATERLOO, ONTARIO — FEBRUARY 06, 2023 — Planitar Inc. is proud to announce the launch of a new service, iGUIDE Preview. Powered by computer vision and deep learning AI models, Planitar customers will now receive access to iGUIDE 3D tour with interactive floor plan within minutes of uploading project files to the iGUIDE cloud. The Preview service is offered as an extension to Standard and Premium iGUIDE orders, and maintains all the benefits of floor plan based virtual tour navigation. "The combination of 360° images and 2D LiDAR scans produced by the iGUIDE PLANIX camera system was designed to balance fast capture with rich visuals and accurate floor plan data. This unique sensor fusion greatly increases reliability of AI predictions and accuracy of automatic floor plan generation compared to floor plans generated from 360° images alone. When combined with Planitar's capability to rapidly curate sizable, uniquely annotated property data-sets, we have been able to materially advance our core technology offering," said Alexander Likholyot, CEO of Planitar. With iGUIDE Preview, customers can now get delivery of their virtual tour and interactive floor plan within minutes of completing an iGUIDE property scan, often before they have left the property. Customers can choose to publish this tour directly for their clients, use it to enable internal workflows and gain efficiencies, or wait to receive the full iGUIDE within 24 hours. Fully automated processing allows expedited delivery of property marketing assets within the Residential Real Estate market and supports instant property damage assessment reports within the Insurance and Restoration market. "After years of computer vision and AI development, we are excited to offer this new capability to our business partners," said Jarrad Morden, COO of Planitar Inc. "For the first time, customers can visualize their tour quality before leaving the property, and optionally leverage this instant tour to shorten their own delivery times. Fully automated creation and hosting of virtual tours, interactive floor plans, and detailed property records is in-line with our goal to provide best in class lead times with highly scalable products and services. "iGUIDE Preview is the first deep learning AI product developed by Planitar for external use. Various identification, classification, and quantification models are available to integration partners looking to extract additional property data from iGUIDE virtual tours. "Planitar pioneered the combination of 3D virtual tour technology and interactive floor plan navigation," says Michael Vervena, Planitar's VP of Sales & Marketing. "While iGUIDE Premium remains Planitar's flagship product, the underlying technology powering iGUIDE Preview enables our customers to massively reduce the time required to create tours, floor plans, and property records. This new technology will enable our partners in both Residential and Insurance market verticals to further leverage their investment with Planitar in ways not previously possible."For more information about Planitar Inc. please visit https://goiguide.com. About Planitar Inc. Founded in 2013, in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, Planitar Inc. is the leading provider of a proprietary camera and software platform for capturing and delivering immersive 3D virtual tours and extensive property data, known as iGUIDE.iGUIDE is the most efficient system to map interior spaces and features accurate floor plans, measurements, and reliable property square footage. By integrating floor plans and visual data, iGUIDE provides an intuitive and practical way to digitally navigate and explore built environments.

Renting Costs Nearly $800 Less Per Month than Buying
The top markets with the largest savings for renters include: Austin, Texas (121.3% savings), San Francisco (97.0% savings) and Seattle (86.1% savings) SANTA CLARA, Calif., Jan. 26, 2023 -- For many Americans hoping to make the transition to first-time buying in 2023, renting will likely offer relatively more affordable options in the months ahead, according to the Realtor.com® Monthly Rental Report released today. On average across the 50 largest U.S. metros in December, a typical renter faced a 41.4% ($792) lower monthly payment than a starter homeowner. The markets with the largest monthly savings for renters, ranked by the percent difference between monthly mortgage payments and asking rents, include: Austin, Texas (121.3% or $2,013) San Francisco, Calif. (97.0% or $2,855) Seattle, Wash. (86.1% or $1,772) San Jose, Calif. (83.0% or $2,621) San Diego, Calif. (77.2% or $2,085) Los Angeles, Calif. (74.9% or $2,150) Boston, Mass. (73.1% or $2,097) Portland, Ore. (71.2% or $1,246) Phoenix, Ariz. (70.1% or $1,116) Sacramento, Calif (67.7% or $1,241) "Despite the fact that renting will likely be cheaper than buying in 2023, rental affordability will remain a key issue throughout the year. We expect rents will keep hitting new highs, driven by factors including still-low vacancy rates, lagging new construction and demand from would-be first-time buyers," said Realtor.com® Chief Economist Danielle Hale. "For prospective first-time buyers, the key consideration when figuring out whether to buy or rent is how long you plan to live in your next home. If you're looking for flexibility to move in the shorter term, renting may be your best bet, and still offer opportunities to save if you're able to compromise on factors like proximity to the downtown area. Whereas buying could be the better option if you're planning to stay put for at least five years. Market conditions will play a role, but ultimately the timing comes down to your personal situation, and tools like the Realtor.com® Rent vs. Buy Calculator can help you organize and make sense of the many considerations." In December, renters faced lower monthly costs than first-time buyers, on average across the 50 largest U.S. metros and in the vast majority (45) of these markets. Additionally, the gap between the cost of renting and buying a similar-sized home widened significantly compared to December 2021. While this was partly attributed to the slowdown in rent growth seen over the past year, December trends indicate that the increase in relative rental affordability was primarily driven by skyrocketing mortgage rates. In December, the U.S. median rental price, $1,712, was $792 lower than a typical monthly starter home payment. Just 12 months ago, the difference was -$174. The widening gap between rents and first-time buying costs is largely attributed to higher starter homeownership monthly costs ($2,504), which grew 37.4% year-over-year in December – more than 10 times faster than rents (+3.2%) during the same period. Furthermore, despite the slowdown in year-over-year rent growth seen in recent months, typical asking rents ended the year up an average of 11.6% year-over-year. Renting was more affordable than first-time buying in 45 of the 50 largest markets in December, up from 30 markets at the same time last year. In the top 10 metros that favored renting over first-time buying (see table below), monthly starter homeownership costs were an average of 82.2% (+$1,920) higher than rents. Just five markets favored starter homeownership over renting in December, in terms of offering lower monthly costs; these were: Memphis, Tenn. (-32.7%), Pittsburgh (-24.1%), Birmingham, Ala. (-23.5%), St. Louis, Mo. (-6.9%) and Baltimore, Md. (-3.7%). December & Full-Year 2022 Rental Metrics – National December & Full-Year 2022 Rental Metrics – 50 Largest U.S. Metro Areas Ranked by % difference between rents and monthly starter home payments Methodology Rental data as of December 2022 for units advertised as for-rent on Realtor.com®. Rental units include apartment communities as well as private rentals (condos, townhomes, single-family homes). All units were studio, 1-bedroom, or 2-bedroom units. National rents were calculated by averaging the medians of the 50 largest U.S. metropolitan areas, as defined by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Realtor.com® began publishing regular monthly rental trends reports in October 2020 with data history going back to March 2019. The monthly cost of buying a starter home, also referred to in this release as first-time buying, was calculated by averaging the December median listing prices of studio, 1-bed, and 2-bed homes, weighted by the number of listings, in each housing market (average across the 50 largest U.S. metros: $318,697). Monthly buying costs assume a 7% down payment, with a mortgage rate of 6.36%, and include taxes, insurance and HOA fees. About Realtor.com® Realtor.com® is an open real estate marketplace built for everyone. Realtor.com® pioneered the world of digital real estate more than 25 years ago. Today, through its website and mobile apps, Realtor.com® is a trusted guide for consumers, empowering more people to find their way home by breaking down barriers, helping them make the right connections, and creating confidence through expert insights and guidance. For professionals, Realtor.com® is a trusted partner for business growth, offering consumer connections and branding solutions that help them succeed in today's on-demand world. Realtor.com® is operated by News Corp [Nasdaq: NWS, NWSA] [ASX: NWS, NWSLV] subsidiary Move, Inc. For more information, visit Realtor.com®.

Zillow's new AI-powered natural-language search is a first in real estate
Now buyers and renters on Zillow can skip the filters and search the same way they'd describe their ideal home to a friend, including features like layout, location, style, condition, lifestyle and more SEATTLE, Jan. 26, 2023 -- Zillow has launched a new AI-powered feature that lets shoppers search for homes in the same way they would talk to their friends and family. Zillow is the first major residential real estate marketplace to implement this advanced, AI-powered search engine for the home shopping experience. Now home shoppers can enter phrases like "$700K homes in Charlotte with a backyard" or "open house near me with four bedrooms" directly into the Zillow search bar, rather than starting with a location and having to filter their way to the homes they want. They can also save their searches and have Zillow notify them when new qualifying listings come online. The "natural language search" feature is now live on the Zillow® app for iOS® users and is coming soon to Android™ devices and Zillow.com. "Beyond easy-to-filter criteria like bedrooms and bathrooms, buyers are considering many other specific features that match their unique lifestyle," said Jenny Arden, Zillow's chief design officer. "This new tool is a game changer for home shopping, because it helps shorten the sometimes long and stressful house-hunting process by creating an easy, more modern way to search, and it delivers relevant search results in a simple, uncluttered way." Zillow's natural language search feature takes users' queries and scans millions of listing details to bring relevant results to the surface. At the same time, the feature is training machine learning models to better respond to search queries that use natural, human-like sentences. Zillow is the first major residential real estate marketplace to implement this advanced, AI-powered search engine for the home shopping experience. Many of Zillow's most impactful features are powered by AI and machine learning, ranging from the Neural Zestimate® valuation to providing the best personalized home recommendations to generating floor plans from panoramic photos. The company continues to invest in tech innovation like AI as part of its vision to deliver the "housing super app" — a single digital ecosystem of connected solutions for all the tasks and services related to moving. "The future of real estate will be powered through AI," Arden said. "We are proud to be the first in the industry to offer this smarter way to search, and excited to see how it learns and evolves to help each Zillow shopper find their perfect home." About Zillow Group Zillow Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: Z and ZG) is reimagining real estate to make it easier to unlock life's next chapter. As the most visited real estate website in the United States, Zillow® and its affiliates offer customers an on-demand experience for selling, buying, renting, or financing with transparency and ease. Zillow Group's affiliates and subsidiaries include Zillow®; Zillow Premier Agent®; Zillow Home Loans™; Zillow Closing Services™; Trulia®; Out East®; StreetEasy®; HotPads®; and ShowingTime+SM, which houses ShowingTime®, Bridge Interactive®, dotloop®, and interactive floor plans. Zillow Home Loans, LLC is an Equal Housing Lender, NMLS #10287 (www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org).

Texas home builders see record sales but Days on Market jumps
HomesUSA.com reports record inventory, average prices mixed Dallas, TX – January 24, 2023 – Texas home builders saw record new home sales last month for 2022. Still, inventory continues to climb, also setting a new record, and it's taking longer to sell a home, according to a new HomesUSA.com New Home Sales Report released today by Ben Caballero, the nation's top-ranked real estate agent and HomesUSA.com CEO. The HomesUSA.com New Home Sales Report uses Multiple Listing Services data – the most complete, current, and accurate information available – from the Realtor Associations of Austin, North Texas, Houston, and San Antonio. Caballero notes that the 3-month moving average of Texas' new home sales in its four largest markets increased in December to 4,467 from 4,103 in November – a record for the year. However, the HomesUSA.com New Home Sales Index shows the pace of new home sales also slowed for the fourth straight month. The statewide 3-month moving average for Days on Market in December jumped by more than 10 days, increasing to 73.57 days versus 63 days in November. "Overall, Texas builders defied market expectations as December was the top sales month for 2022 – rarely the best month of the year for sales," said Caballero. "While builders may be struggling on several fronts as home buyers face higher interest rates, in Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio, builders are showing remarkable resilience. In terms of total new home sales, Texas continues to buck the national trend," he added. According to Caballero, home prices appear to be stabilizing. The 3-month moving average of new home sales prices statewide were slightly higher last month at $463,514 from $461,511 in November. Austin and San Antonio recorded higher average new home prices last month – both experiencing increases of over $10,000 and $8,000 respectively. The 3-month moving average price for new homes dropped in the state's two biggest markets: Houston and Dallas-Ft. Worth. The 3-month moving average price for new homes in Austin, which continues to have the highest-priced new homes in the state, increased in December to $533,703 versus $523,723 in November. San Antonio's average new home price in December was $396,487 versus $388,183 in November. Houston's average new home price decreased in December to $423,512 from $427,038 in November. In Dallas-Ft. Worth, the average new home price declined in December to $501,789 from $502,466 in November. Still, builders are facing mounting pressure as building inventory also hits a record high for the year. Local MLSs show the 3-month average of active listings in Texas' four largest markets for December climbing to 28,088 from 27,146 in November. The number of active listings of new homes in Texas has nearly doubled year-over-year, registering 14,383 listings in December 2021. "Building enough homes to close the inventory gap still may be the biggest challenge for builders in 2023," Caballero said. Caballero sounded the housing inventory alarm in May 2021, in an opinion column for Inman News, noting a US shortfall of over 5.52 million homes. Finally, Caballero noted statewide pending new home sales reported to the MLSs increased last month. In December, the 3-month moving average of pending new home sales statewide was 4,605 versus 4,461 in November. Two of Texas's major new home markets – Dallas-Ft. Worth and Austin – reported an increase in pending new home sales last month, with San Antonio and Houston being exceptions. San Antonio reported flat pending new home sales in December of 596 versus 597 in November while Houston's pending new home sales decreased in December to 1,522 from 1,538 in November. HomesUSA.com is sharing its New Home Sales Report and New Home Sales Index before the Commerce Department releases its nationwide New Residential Sales Report for December, set for Thursday, January 26, 2023 at 10:00 am Eastern. The HomesUSA.com monthly report is based on closed sales recorded inside the MLSs by the 10th day of the following month. Sales reported late by agents are not included. The report features 3-month and 12-month moving averages for six essential market data, including Days on Market, sales volume, sales prices, a sales-to-list price ratio, pending sales, and active listings. Caballero explained the 3-month moving average indices track market seasonality, while the 12-month moving average removes the seasonality and tracks the longer trend. Days on Market – New Homes in Texas (Exclusive Data) The HomesUSA.com New Home Sales Index showed the 3-month moving average of Days on Market continues to increase statewide and in all four major new home markets in December. In Dallas-Ft. Worth, the DOM increased to 83.16 days from 68.59 days in November. Houston's DOM was 76.09 days versus 68.43 days in November. In San Antonio, the DOM was 68.94 days versus 65.43 days in November. In Austin, the DOM increased to 52.24 days versus 40.27 days in November. (See Chart 1: Texas New Homes Days on Market) Texas New Home Sales Data Based on all available local MLS data, total new home sales in Texas were higher statewide and in all four major new home markets last month, according to the 3-month moving average. Dallas-Ft. Worth new home sales increased to 1,458 versus 1,241 in November. In Houston, December's total sales were 1,677 versus 1,548 in November. In San Antonio, new home sales in December rose to 580 versus 575 in November. In Austin, new home sales increased in December to 752 versus 740 in November. (See Chart 2: Texas New Home Sales) Texas New Home Prices The average price of new homes in Texas shows higher prices statewide, but lower prices in two of the four major new home markets last month. In Dallas-Ft. Worth, the 3-month moving average price for new homes was lower in December at $501,789 versus $502,466 in November. In Houston, the average new home price was also lower in December at $423,512 versus $427,038 in November. Austin's 3-month moving average price increased in December to $533,703 from $523,723 in November. In San Antonio, the average new home price also increased in December at $396,487 versus $388,183 in November. (See Chart 3: Texas New Home Prices) Texas Sales-to-List Price Ratio New home sales statewide and in Dallas-Ft. Worth, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio are continuing to move away from 100 percent of the asking price. Statewide, the 3-month moving average of the sales-to-list price ratio in December was 97.59 versus 98.17 percent in November. Dallas-Ft. Worth's ratio was 98.05 versus 98.52 percent in November. In Houston, the ratio was 97.44 versus 97.80 percent in November. In Austin, the sales-to-price ratio in December was 96.79 versus 98.02 percent in November. San Antonio's ratio in December was 97.92 versus 98.48 percent in November. (See Chart 4: Texas Sales-to-List Price Ratio) Texas Pending New Homes Sales Data Based on local MLS data, pending new home sales increased statewide and in two of the four Texas major new home markets last month. Statewide MLS data shows pending sales in December were 4,605 versus 4,461 in November. Pending new home sales last month in Dallas-Ft. Worth were 1,773 versus 1,700 in November. In Austin, pending new home sales in December were 714 versus 626 in November. In Houston, pending new home sales in December decreased to 1,522 versus 1,538 in November. In San Antonio, pending sales last month were 596 versus 597 in November. (See Chart 5: Texas Pending New Home Sales) Texas Active Listings for New Homes MLS data shows the 3-month moving average for active listings statewide increased in December to 28,088 versus 27,146 in November. Last month, all four major Texas new home markets posted higher active listings. Dallas-Ft. Worth's active listings in December were 7,513 versus 7,253 in November. Last month's active listings in Houston were 11,545 versus 11,363 in November. December's active listings in Austin were higher at 4,634 versus 4,348 in November. San Antonio reported active new home listings in December were 4,395 versus 4,182 in November. (See Chart 6: Texas Active Listings and Chart A: 12-Month Moving Averages) About the HomesUSA.com New Home Sales Index The HomesUSA.com Index is reported as both a 3-month and 12-month moving average of the Days on Market (DOM) for new homes listed in the local Multiple Listing Services (MLSs) for the four largest Texas markets, including Dallas-Ft. Worth, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio. Created by Ben Caballero, founder and CEO of HomesUSA.com, it is the first Days on Market index to track Texas new home market and includes homes listed while under construction. About Ben Caballero and HomesUSA.com® Ben Caballero, founder and CEO of HomesUSA.com, is a three-time Guinness World Record title holder for ‘Most annual home sale transactions through MLS by an individual sell-side real estate agent – current.' Ranked by REAL Trends as America's top real estate agent for home sales since 2013, Ben is the most productive real estate agent in U.S. history. He is the only agent to exceed $1 billion in residential sales transactions in a single year, a feat first achieved in 2015 and repeated each year through 2018 when he achieved more than $2 billion. An award-winning innovator and technology pioneer, Ben works with more than 60 home builders in Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio. His podcast series is available on iTunes and Google Podcasts. Learn more at HomesUSA.com |Twitter: @bcaballero - @HomesUSA | Facebook: /HomesUSAdotcom.

Realtor.com Forecasts the 10 Best Markets for First-Time Homebuyers in 2023
Beyond affordability, these 10 markets have many attractive features for first-time buyers – from nearby amenities to job opportunities SANTA CLARA, Calif., Jan. 18, 2023 -- With affordability continuing to be a big hurdle in 2023, first-time buyers may need to be flexible in order to land a house in the coming year. To find the Best Markets for First-time Homebuyers, Realtor.com® looked at a number of qualities that make a town attractive, including affordability, livability and where it might be easier for young buyers to break into the housing market. The top 10 markets for first-time homebuyers in 2023 are: Portsmouth, Va., DeForest, Wisc., Windsor Locks, Conn., Gloucester City, N.J., Moore, Okla., Magna, Utah, Eggertsville, N.Y., Watervliet, N.Y., Mattydale, N.Y. and Somersworth, N.H. What makes these towns great for first-time buyers? They have strong job markets, short commute times, plenty of places to eat and drink, a younger population, affordability, and more homes to choose from. "The housing market will continue to be challenging for first-time buyers in the coming year, but for those with a bit of flexibility in where they live, there are markets where young buyers can find not just a relatively affordable home, but a neighborhood that offers a mix of economic opportunity and lifestyle amenities," said Realtor.com® Chief Economist Danielle Hale. "Affordability is always a consideration for first-time buyers, but it's also important to make sure that you're settling down in a location that has all the qualities that make it an enjoyable place to live – after all, you're not just buying a house, you're investing in a community." This year's best markets have: More homes to choose from: With inventory still near historic lows, having more homes to choose from can make a world of difference. Realtor.com®'s best markets for first-time homebuyers have an average of 47.8 listings per 1,000 households, higher than the national rate of 45.2. Magna, Utah has the widest selection of listings per household on this year's list. Short commutes: Typically, the farther from city centers, the cheaper the homes, but no one wants to spend all day commuting. This year's top towns have an average expected commute time of just 24 minutes. This is significantly faster than the national average of 30 minutes–it would save 50 hours per year for a 5-day commuter. Those looking for an especially short commute should check out Eggertsville, N.Y., which has an average travel time of just 20 minutes. Options for food and drinks: Buying a house doesn't need to mean giving up on a latte or an occasional meal out. The top towns have an average of 5.6 food and drink establishments per 1,000 households in their metro area, higher than the national rate of 5.3. Somersworth, N.H. topped the list for proximity to restaurants. Younger residents: When it comes to picking a new community, younger buyers are often drawn to younger towns. This year's list has an average of 14.8% of residents in the 25-34 year age category, compared to the national average of 13.4%. Magna, Utah (which also made the 2022 list) tied Moore, Okla. as the youngest markets on the list. Affordability: With high home prices and interest rates, affordability is a key factor for first-time homebuyers. The best markets offer an average 2022 listing price to income ratio of 3.5 for 25- 34 year-olds, much lower than the national rate of 5.1. Mattydale, N.Y. and Gloucester City, N.J. tied for the most affordable locations on the list. Strong housing markets: A home is an investment, and this is especially true for first-time buyers who are likely investing a large portion of their savings into a home. To help best protect that investment, it's important to buy in a location that has a strong local housing market and is likely to hold its value, if not appreciate. This year's markets are located within metro areas that have an average forecasted 2023 home sales growth rate of 1.2%, higher than the national rate which is expected to decline -14.1%. In terms of price growth, Somersworth, N.H. is located within the Boston metro area which is expected to have the highest growth in 2023 among the 10 places on our list (+9.5%), followed closely by the Madison metro area containing DeForest, Wisc.(+9.0%). Realtor.com® 2023 Best Markets for First-Time Homebuyers   Home shoppers can visit Realtor.com® to learn about the process, see if they might be eligible for down payment assistance and find out how much they can afford. Realtor.com®'s Buying Power tool enables shoppers to save their personal information to their profile, so each home listing will show if it is "affordable," "a stretch," "difficult" or "out of reach" based on a shopper's specific budget. Methodology Realtor.com® ranked towns with an expected 2023 population of at least 5,000 residents. The inventory of homes for sale and local median listing prices are from Realtor.com® December 2021 to November 2022 listing data and are reported at the city/place level. The cities and places are defined as postal codes mapped to Census Designated places and reflect approximate but not precise city or place boundaries. The population, household count, household income, and average commute time data were sourced from 2022 and 2023 Claritas estimates based on Census Bureau data. Population and household count numbers are at the city/place level but are also composed of mapped zip code data while household incomes and average commute times at the city/place level. The stated forecasted unemployment rates are Moody's Analytics projections of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Local Area Unemployment Statistics for each city/place's surrounding metro area. Counts of food and beverage establishments are from 2020 County Business Patterns data and are also reported at the metro-level. The 2023 sales and price forecasts are Realtor.com® projections for each city/place's surrounding metro area as detailed in our 2023 Housing Forecast and Top Housing Markets for 2023 reports. About Realtor.com® Realtor.com® is an open real estate marketplace built for everyone. Realtor.com® pioneered the world of digital real estate more than 25 years ago. Today, through its website and mobile apps, Realtor.com® is a trusted guide for consumers, empowering more people to find their way home by breaking down barriers, helping them make the right connections, and creating confidence through expert insights and guidance. For professionals, Realtor.com® is a trusted partner for business growth, offering consumer connections and branding solutions that help them succeed in today's on-demand world. Realtor.com® is operated by News Corp [Nasdaq: NWS, NWSA] [ASX: NWS, NWSLV] subsidiary Move, Inc. For more information, visit Realtor.com®.

FundingShield Announces Partnership with Milestones to Deliver Homebuyers with Protection from Wire Fraud
Newport Beach, Calif. – January 17, 2023 – FundingShield, LLC., is pleased to announce it has entered into a strategic partnership to deliver its consumer wire fraud prevention technology ("CWAVs") to clients of Milestones.ai ("Milestones") protecting homebuyers from real estate wire fraud. FundingShield, a leading provider of FinTech risk management and fraud prevention tools used in the US real estate and mortgage finance ecosystem, announced that its Consumer-Wire Account Verification Service (referred to as "CWAVs") will be made available to Milestones.AI clients. "FundingShield creates a secure closing experience for all parties involved in a loan, from the borrower to the investor and all the service providers in-between," shared Ike Suri, Chairman and CEO of FundingShield. "Our partnership with Milestones will put the tools needed to protect homebuyers in the hands of real estate professionals who are highly incentivized to protect their clients from business email compromise, wire fraud and other risks when those clients wire large amounts of closing funds." FundingShield provides cyber-security risk management, fraud prevention and transaction closing automation tools to lenders and real estate firms to protect their closings. FundingShield's CWAVs product protects homebuyer's and real estate investor clients through an easy-to-use mobile/tablet responsive product to confirm the settlement wire account information for any closing, settlement, escrow, or attorney account in the country. Milestones is a customer-for-life experience platform for buying, selling, moving, and managing home ownership - provided to consumers by professionals in real estate, mortgage, insurance, and title. The integrated and open platform creates private personalized client portals where agents can stay connected, educate, and create value at every stage of the homeowner journey. CWAVs is a first-of-its-kind of product for consumer protection addressing wire fraud risk for consumers in the millions of transactions where homebuyers and real estate acquirers are often given no tools to protect themselves from this growing fraud risk. FundingShield has secured over $2.5 Trillion of closings in the housing industry to date. This strategic partnership allows realtors, agents and consumers to be on equal footing with sophisticated financial institutions by protecting closings and preserving trust in the real estate closing process. "We are excited to partner with FundingShield to provide even more value to our real estate clients, and in turn to their consumers," said Dustin Gray, CEO of Milestones. "Milestones' transaction hubs bring all parties into one experience, creating a transparent and delightful closing experience for consumers." About FundingShield FundingShield is a MISMO Certified FinTech offering B2B and B2B2C solutions delivering transaction level coverage against wire and title fraud, settlement risk, closing agent compliance and cyber threats while reducing operating costs and improving asset quality for US real estate investors and US mortgage finance companies. FundingShield's user-centric plug'n'play tools are scalable, pay-per-loan, secure, cloud-based and are integrated via API's or LOS (Encompass) driving ROIs >200% on operational cost savings alone. FundingShield is a four-time HousingWire TECH100 Winner for 2019, 2022 CFO Tech Outlook Top 10 Financial Security Solution Provider, 2021 and 2022 Inc.5000 award recipient (in the Top 500), California MBA Tech Innovator, ICE Mortgage Technology (InterContinental Exchange) Encompass partner and an IBM cloud services partner. Contact [email protected] for further information. About Milestones Milestones is dedicated to helping real estate industry professionals break free from the transaction mindset by focusing on Homeowner Management. The integrated and open platform creates private client portals to stay connected and deliver ongoing personalized value — regardless of whether customers are buying, moving, owning, or selling. Instant access to verified trusted service partners ensures that clients never have to worry during any life event. The payoff from staying connected and helping customers solve problems: Fiercely loyal customers for life. Learn more at Milestones.ai.

Inventory Ends the Year Up 55% but Remains Below Historic Levels
Price growth eases to high single-digit territory in December SANTA CLARA, Calif., Jan. 12, 2023 -- The U.S. housing market continued to show signs of normalizing in December, with inventory and time on market increasing and listing price growth moderating, according to the Realtor.com® Monthly Housing Trends Report released today. After the frenzy of the past two years, this suggests good news for homebuyers in the new year with more options and more time to make a decision. "In December, we saw both buyers and sellers pulling back as they continue to adjust to a challenging market. Buyers started 2022 facing high home prices and limited inventories, and ended the year with interest rates roughly double where they started. Despite significant cooling in sales in 2022, some indicators remain in high gear. Prices are still significantly higher and homes are selling faster compared to 2019 pre-pandemic levels," said Danielle Hale, Chief Economist for Realtor.com®. "Although demand has softened compared to last year, pushing home price growth into single-digit territory for the first time in 12 months, moderation in home price growth may encourage more buyers to return to the market in the months ahead, and may also be welcome news for sellers aiming to sell and buy at the same time. Affordability will remain a challenge and buyers will want to keep a close eye on their potential mortgage payment – a mortgage calculator is a great way to do this." December 2022 Housing Metrics – National Active listings up significantly from 2021, easing inventory constraints for buyers The supply of active listings for sale in the U.S. increased significantly in December over the previous year, signaling continued hesitation from buyers in the face of mortgage affordability and other obstacles. While the number of homes for sale continued to increase in the latter part of 2022, inventory is still significantly lower than it was in 2019 before the pandemic. Home sellers also continued to be less active in December and fewer listed their home for sale compared to one year ago. Nationally, the active inventory of homes for sale grew 54.7% year-over-year in December, but is still well below pre-pandemic levels (-38.2% compared to the December 2017-2019 average). Both newly-listed homes (-21.0%) and pending listings, or homes under contract with a buyer (-36.8%), declined year-over-year. Among the 50 largest U.S. metros, 49 markets posted yearly active inventory gains in December, led by Raleigh, N.C. (+226.2%), Nashville, Tenn., (+226.0%), and Austin, Texas (+186.6%). Only Hartford, Conn. (-7.7%) saw a year-over-year decline in the number of for-sale homes. In December, on average across the 50 largest metros, the number of homes for sale was up 74.6% compared to a year ago, with the most growth in active listings in the West (+110.2%), which nearly reached pre-pandemic 2019 levels (-3.9%). On average across the 50 largest metros, no regions saw year-over-year new listing increases in December, with the greatest declines registered in the West (-32.5%), followed by the Northeast (-21.8%), Midwest (-19.3%) and South (-17.2%). Furthermore, newly-listed homes increased in just two markets: Nashville(4.1%) and Buffalo, N.Y.. (+3.0%). Home price growth moderates to single digits for the first time in a year In December, growth in the typical asking price slowed to a single-digit pace for the first time since December 2021. While this is still higher than normal, it's a significant slowdown from the peak 18% year over year pace seen earlier in 2022 and signals that fewer buyers are willing to take the plunge amid ongoing housing affordability challenges. Despite recent easing in mortgage rates from their early-November peak, higher rates and home prices compared to a year ago have increased the typical mortgage payment by nearly $750 each month or 58.9% more than last year, far outpacing recent rent growth (3.4%) and inflation (7.1%). Realtor.com®'s expectation for 2023 is that rates will climb higher early in the year before falling in the second half. In December, the U.S. median listing price was $400,000, up 8.4% year-over-year. This is the first time since December 2021 the annual growth rate has fallen below double-digits. While the monthly home price growth rate has slowed from the double-digits seen during the pandemic frenzy, overall, home prices continued to rise in 2022, and the median list price was up an average 13.4% compared to the previous year. The slowdown in the demand for homes has caused sellers to cut their prices. Nationally, 13.6% of active listings had their price reduced, a higher share than in December 2021 (+6.5 percentage points), but similar to the 2018 share (14.5%). Among the 50 largest U.S. metros, the biggest annual listing price gains were in Midwest metros (+12.2%, on average). The markets with the biggest increases were Milwaukee (+46.2%), Memphis, Tenn. (+34.0%), and Miami (+20.4%). Southern (+9.6 percentage points) and Western metros (+8.7 percentage points) saw the greatest increases in the share of listings with price reductions. Listing prices declined in nine markets, led by New Orleans (-4.4%), Denver (-4.0%), Austin (-3.4%), Phoenix( -2.4%) , and Pittsburgh (-2.3%). Homes stay on the market 11 days longer on average as buyers take their time to decide For-sale homes continued to spend more time on market compared to the prior year amid a growing number of homes for sale and softening buyer demand. Modestly rising incomes (+4.6% year over year in December) and a robust jobs market (unemployment remains low at 3.5% in December), cannot completely offset lower buyer purchasing power, and as a result, homes are sitting on the market for longer, as buyers take their time to decide. Homes still sold faster in December than was common in 2019, with more affordable, lower-priced markets in the Midwest and Northeast seeing homes sell faster than in other areas. Looking ahead, mid-sized markets that offer better affordability and solid jobs and economies, especially those among Realtor.com®'s top housing markets of 2023, may continue to be attractive to homeshoppers, especially those with the flexibility to relocate. In December, the typical home spent 67 days on market, 11 days longer than last year, but still 16 days faster than in 2017-2019, on average. Time on market was lower across the 50 largest U.S. metros (61 days, on average) relative to the national pace, but also slowed from the December 2021 pace (+11 days). Forty-five metros saw an increase in time on market compared to last year, with larger metros in the West seeing the greatest increase (+18 days) followed by the South (+13 days). Metros where homes spent longest on the market compared to December 2021 were Raleigh, N.C. (+36 days), Phoenix (+34 days), and Las Vegas (+33 days). In the five metros where time on market declined compared to last year the biggest declines were seen in Milwaukee (-16 days) and New Orleans (-5 days). December 2022 Housing Metrics – 50 Largest U.S. Metro Areas Methodology Realtor.com® housing data as of December 2022. Listings include the active inventory of existing single-family homes and condos/townhomes/rowhomes/co-ops for the given level of geography; new construction is excluded unless listed via an MLS. Realtor.com® data history goes back to July 2016. 50 largest U.S. metropolitan areas as defined by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). About Realtor.com® Realtor.com® is an open real estate marketplace built for everyone. Realtor.com® pioneered the world of digital real estate more than 25 years ago. Today, through its website and mobile apps, Realtor.com® is a trusted guide for consumers, empowering more people to find their way home by breaking down barriers, helping them make the right connections, and creating confidence through expert insights and guidance. For professionals, Realtor.com® is a trusted partner for business growth, offering consumer connections and branding solutions that help them succeed in today's on-demand world. Realtor.com® is operated by News Corp [Nasdaq: NWS, NWSA] [ASX: NWS, NWSLV] subsidiary Move, Inc. For more information, visit Realtor.com®.

planetRE Announces AI Intellectual Assistant within Socialite CRM
First CRM platform featuring cutting-edge AI, NLP and neural computation SAN JOSE, Calif., Jan. 10, 2023 -- planetRE, the nation's leading enterprise cloud vendor, today announced new CRM capabilities integrating cutting edge AI and Neural network technology to enhance productivity and creativity for marketers. The new feature called AI Intellectual Assistant allows users to generate contents on any topics, create realistic art and imagery prescribed via short natural language phrases and transform any loaded picture using a library of AI transformations – all with full user control for automated email, text and predictive marketing campaigns. Topics for contents can be graded on a scale from full match to suggestive contents. Many marketers' experience the "creativity block" – after a point topics, contents and campaigns look mundane reducing client engagement and low ROI. The new AI Assistant can spring up enthusiasm for both creator and the customer for increased engagements with delightful new contents that harnesses the power of AI and neural network learning. "Humans have worked hard for a long time. It is time machines do the heavy lifting from here on" said Subrao Shenoy, CEO of planetRE. "The new capabilities of planetRE CRM using creative AI for contents, art and imagery enhances the marketers productivity and a new competitive advantage". About planetRE planetRE is privately held enterprise software company in Silicon Valley, CA. More information about planetRE and patented CRM can be found on www.planetre.com. planetRE, planetRE Socialite are trademarks. All other registered trademarks are the property of their respective holders.

CoreLogic's Major US Housing Market Trends of 2022
After more than a decade of overheated growth, 2022's rapid increase in mortgage rates put the brakes on the U.S. housing market IRVINE, Calif., January 5, 2023—CoreLogic, a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled solutions provider, released the major U.S. housing trends wrap-up for 2022. Year-over-year home price growth increased for the 130th straight month in November, but gains have slowed significantly since the spring. Still, most homeowners were in positive-equity territory throughout the first three quarters of the year, and mortgage delinquencies and foreclosure rates remain near historic lows. "The wild ride known as the U.S. housing market slowed dramatically in the fall of 2022, as mortgage rates surged and home prices remained high," said Molly Boesel, principal economist at CoreLogic. "Home sales started strong in early 2022 but took a nosedive later in the year. On the plus side, generous amounts of home equity will protect many borrowers from experiencing the type of foreclosure activity seen during the Great Recession." Here is a high-level overview of major U.S. housing market trends in 2022 using data from CoreLogic's regular economic reports, which include information dating back several decades, as well as analyses and unique insights from the company's Office of the Chief Economist. Home Price Growth Declined Significantly Between Spring and Fall According to CoreLogic's monthly Home Price Index data, U.S. year-over-year home price growth reached 20.1% in April 2022, the highest level recorded in more than two decades. However, appreciation has tapered off every month since, falling to 8.6% in November. Sun Belt states led the nation for annual home price gains for most of the year, notably Florida, which posted the highest gain in the country from February to November. This trend partially reflects Americans migrating from more expensive areas in the West to more affordable areas of the country. However, price growth in Southern states has followed the national trend and slowed in recent months. The year's spike in interest rates is the primary factor in moderating home price growth, with Freddie Mac data putting 30-year fixed-rate mortgages at 3.22% in early January compared with a yearly high of 7.08% in mid-November. Despite the slowdown, a shortage of available homes for sale, strong mortgage underwriting standards and an unemployment rate that has returned to pre-pandemic levels are keeping the housing market relatively healthy, making a major downturn unlikely. Home Equity Growth Remains Strong Despite a Cooling Market This year's strong home price growth led to robust home equity gains across the country for nearly two-thirds of American homeowners with a mortgage. CoreLogic's quarterly Home Equity Report shows that in the first quarter of 2022, borrowers gained a collective $3.8 trillion in home equity since the first quarter of 2021, a 32.2% increase. During that period, U.S. homeowners with a mortgage gained an average of $64,000. But since home price growth is the primary driver of equity growth, increases slowed as prices cooled. In the third quarter of 2022, homeowners gained a total of $2.2 trillion in equity than during the same quarter in 2021, an increase of 15.8% and averaging $34,300 per borrower. Mortgage Performance Is Healthier Than Ever CoreLogic's latest Loan Performance Index shows that, despite 2022's surge in mortgage rates, almost all borrowers were able to meet their monthly payments this year. For the first 10 months of 2022, the number of homeowners with a mortgage who were at least 30 days late on their payments hovered between 3.4% and 2.7%, with the latest data reporting a 2.8% overall delinquency rate in October. On an annual basis, mortgage delinquencies dropped for the 19th consecutive month in October. Foreclosure rates remained near record lows throughout most of 2022, bottoming out at 0.2% in February and remaining at 0.3% through October. The fact that 99% of borrowers have lower mortgage rates locked in than current rates helps prevent most homeowners from making late payments or defaulting on them altogether. Rent Price Growth Trends Follow Home Price Patterns Like home price gains, U.S. rental prices relaxed in 2022, reaching single digits in October for the first time since June 2021. CoreLogic's monthly Single-Family Rent Index shows that year-over-year rent growth slowed to 8.8% in October, down from 13.9% in the spring of 2022. Florida cities led the nation for annual rent increases for much of the year, with Miami and Orlando holding the top two spots, respectively, since January. Besides monthly and quarterly reports on the state of the U.S. housing market, CoreLogic's expert economic team regularly weighs in on data and trends that affect all parties involved in the property industry. Check back frequently for the Office of the Chief Economist's commentary here, and keep up with CoreLogic Intelligence posts for leading property industry data and insights, including information on climate change, natural disaster consequences, construction trends and more. About CoreLogic CoreLogic is a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled solutions provider. The company's combined data from public, contributory and proprietary sources includes over 4.5 billion records spanning more than 50 years, providing detailed coverage of property, mortgages and other encumbrances, consumer credit, tenancy, location, hazard risk and related performance information. The markets CoreLogic serves include real estate and mortgage finance, insurance, capital markets, and the public sector. CoreLogic delivers value to clients through unique data, analytics, workflow technology, advisory and managed services. Clients rely on CoreLogic to help identify and manage growth opportunities, improve performance and mitigate risk. Headquartered in Irvine, Calif., CoreLogic operates in North America, Western Europe and Asia Pacific. For more information, please visit www.corelogic.com.

'First-Time Buyer' Season 3 Now Streaming on Hulu
CHICAGO (December 27, 2022) – The third season of First-Time Buyer by the National Association of Realtors® is now available to watch on Hulu. The unscripted television series, created by NAR in 2020, provides an accurate representation of the American homebuying process while highlighting the important role that Realtors® play in helping U.S. consumers achieve the dream of homeownership. "First-Time Buyer provides a unique and authentic glimpse into the homebuying journey, and the challenges and triumphs that come with it," said NAR President Kenny Parcell, a Realtor® from Spanish Fork, Utah, and broker-owner of Equity Real Estate Utah. "Through this series, we hope to inspire and educate aspiring homebuyers, and to showcase the valuable role that Realtors® play in supporting their clients." The eight new episodes – filmed across Houston and Tampa – follow different individuals, couples and families through their first homebuying journey. "The stories featured in this season of First-Time Buyer are relatable and inspiring," said NAR Head of Production Alicia Bailey. "They showcase the diversity of the American homebuying experience, as well as the various emotions that come with it. We hope that viewers will be able to relate to the experiences of these homebuyers and learn from their journey as they navigate the complex world of real estate." First-Time Buyer is an extension of NAR's consumer advertising campaign, "That's Who We R", which works to elevate the Realtor® brand by highlighting unique differentiators, such as Realtors®' commitment to the association's Code of Ethics. "As Realtors®, we are proud to support and guide first-time buyers through this exciting and sometimes overwhelming process," said Parcell. "It's truly an amazing feeling to help someone achieve their dream of owning a home." All episodes from seasons one and two are also available to stream for free on YouTube, Facebook and at firsttimebuyer.realtor. The National Association of Realtors® is America's largest trade association, representing more than 1.5 million members involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries. The term Realtor® is a registered collective membership mark that identifies a real estate professional who is a member of the National Association of Realtors® and subscribes to its strict Code of Ethics.

Prairie Village, Kansas, was Zillow's most popular city in 2022
Midwest and Northeast cities rise in the rankings this year as affordability issues grow SEATTLE, Dec. 21, 2022 -- Prairie Village, Kansas, was Zillow®'s most popular market of 2022, showcasing rising interest in the Midwest and headlining a dramatic shift from 2021's predominantly West Coast leaders. Grand Rapids, Michigan, won out for most popular large city, while top vacation, seaside and small towns were found in the Northeast. Florida won out for favorite retirement towns, and Tempe, Arizona, retained its title as the top college town. Using Zillow page-view traffic, available housing inventory, price appreciation, sales data and other housing metrics that indicate consumer demand, Zillow analyzed thousands of ZIP codes within the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas to create a ranking of the site's most popular U.S. cities. "The most popular places on Zillow showcase a few trends we've noticed over the course of the year — most notably that affordability has become the chief driver of the market. The Midwest and most Northeastern markets saw relatively small run-ups in home values over the course of the pandemic, and now are still affordable enough for residents to shop in," said Anushna Prakash, economic data analyst at Zillow. A shift from fully remote to hybrid working situations may also be a factor. While the percentage of employees working remotely all or most of the time is lower than in the early pandemic, the share working from home at least some of the time is now much higher, according to Pew Research. This may help explain the higher popularity in 2022 of vacation spots and small towns within a somewhat reasonable, occasional commute to downtown employment centers. Most popular on Zillow overall: Prairie Village, Kansas An upscale suburban community just minutes from downtown Kansas City, Prairie Village was pushed to the top of Zillow's popularity rankings with site-leading page views of for-sale listings per day. Established on the Kansas-Missouri state line and featuring a number of activity-filled parks, posh shops and restaurants, Prairie Village was also tops on Zillow's popularity rankings for small towns. "I think when most people are looking at houses, they are looking at building a home, and that goes beyond the four walls of the structure you live in and expands to the community," said Earvin Ray, owner of Ray Homes in Kansas City. "Prairie Village offers the trifecta of beautiful homes, a spectrum of accessible price points and great amenities, such as highly rated schools, community events and local shopping." The Kansas City metro area is one of a host of Midwest markets still seeing robust competition for houses because they're relatively affordable. Mortgage costs as a share of income and the years needed for renters to save up for a down payment are far lower than the national average. Rounding out the top three are Derry, New Hampshire, a charming New England town less than 45 minutes from downtown Boston; and Bon Air, Virginia, a small residential community near Richmond with historic Victorian cottages lining its main road. Most popular large city: Grand Rapids, Michigan Grand Rapids, Michigan, topped the popularity chart among cities with populations greater than 200,000, driven by category-leading page views per listing and relatively affordable homes. A wide selection of breweries and a growing local foodie scene are putting Grand Rapids on the map for connoisseurs. Richmond, Virginia — still a very competitive area for home buyers — landed in second place, and Omaha, Nebraska, took third. The three top results led the category for page views per listing, and all feature typical home values significantly lower than the national average of $357,733. Most popular seaside town: Beverly, Massachusetts This Boston suburb features miles of coastline and easily accessible public parks, helping to make it Zillow's most popular seaside town1 in 2022. Top rankings for page views and relatively low home values compared to its competition helped propel Beverly to the crest of the category. Gloucester, Massachusetts, and Newport, Oregon, (the most popular beach town in 2021) ranked second and third for similar reasons. Most popular retirement town: Dunedin, Florida With Dunedin's location on the Gulf Coast west of Tampa, along with local access to plenty of waterfront parks and country clubs, its popularity as a retirement town2 is easy to understand. Florida is home to the top three cities in the category, with Sarasota placing second, and St. Pete Beach in third. Demand for homes has surged in Florida throughout the pandemic, as the state is both a sunny, relatively affordable locale and a prime retirement destination, and it has stayed hot as expensive Western markets cooled in 2022. Most popular small town: Windham, New Hampshire Windham, a bedroom community outside Boston, scored highest on Zillow's index after Prairie Village. Typical home values of $738,574 in Windham are higher than the Boston metro ($643,642). Zillow defined "small towns" as cities with populations between 15,000 and 25,000. Hockessin, Delaware, located outside Philadelphia, followed Windham for third. Most popular vacation town3: Lavallette, New Jersey A popular summer vacation destination for dwellers of nearby New York, Lavallette features long, sandy beaches for swimming, surfing and fishing in the Atlantic; space for bocce, tennis and rollerblading; and opportunities for crabbing, sailing and other water sports in Barnegat Bay. It's also a hot spot for retirees. Indian Rocks Beach, Florida, and South Lake Tahoe, California, followed Lavallette in Zillow's results. Vacation areas have seen a surge in popularity over the course of the pandemic as remote work makes them viable for visits longer than just weekends and holidays. Applications for mortgages in vacation areas rose 30% from 2019 to 2020, with activity concentrated around mountains and coasts, according to a Zillow analysis of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data. Applicants for vacation home mortgages across the U.S. had more than twice the median household income as applicants for primary homes — $170,000 versus $79,000 — and skewed much older than applicants for primary homes, with the majority of second-home applications coming from Gen Xers and Boomers, the analysis found. Top college town: Tempe, Arizona Part of the Phoenix megaplex, Tempe is home to Arizona State University. Reigning as Zillow's top college town4 for the second year in a row, the city is home to the second-highest total number of rental listings among college towns studied, after Cambridge, Massachusetts, and has one of the largest populations of undergraduate and graduate college students. Smithfield, Rhode Island, where Bryant University is located, came in second place; while Bowling Green, Ohio, home of Bowling Green State University, landed third. 1 Listing description data was included in index scoring for the "most popular seaside town" category. Zillow defined "seaside towns" as areas where more than half of listings mentioned the beach, and excluded all cities that don't feature the word "beach" in at least 50 listings on Zillow.2 Using the latest available U.S. Census data, Zillow defined "retirement towns" as areas where at least 33% of the population is over the age of 65 and has no children or other relatives (other than a spouse) living in the home.3 Zillow defines "vacation towns" as areas where more than 33% of the housing units are designated for non-primary use. Based on 2021 American Community Survey data.4 In this analysis, "college towns" are defined as cities with the share of an area's population of college students at least 20% or more based on 2021 U.S. Census data; also used were ZIP code–level populations, aggregated to the city level. About Zillow Group Zillow Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: Z and ZG) is reimagining real estate to make it easier to unlock life's next chapter. As the most visited real estate website in the United States, Zillow® and its affiliates offer customers an on-demand experience for selling, buying, renting, or financing with transparency and ease. Zillow Group's affiliates and subsidiaries include Zillow®; Zillow Premier Agent®; Zillow Home Loans™; Zillow Closing Services™; Trulia®; Out East®; StreetEasy®; HotPads®; and ShowingTime+™, which houses ShowingTime®, Bridge Interactive®, and dotloop®. Zillow Home Loans, LLC is an Equal Housing Lender, NMLS #10287 (www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org).

U.S. Foreclosure Completions Increase Annually by 64% in November 2022
Foreclosure Activity Remains Up 57 Percent from Last Year, and Foreclosure Starts Increase Annually by 98 Percent; But Both Measures Down from October 2022 IRVINE, Calif. — Dec. 8, 2022 — ATTOM, a leading curator of real estate data nationwide for land and property data, today released its November 2022 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which shows there were a total of 30,677 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions – up 57 percent from a year ago, but down 5 percent from the prior month. "We may be at or near a peak level of foreclosure activity for 2022," said Rick Sharga, executive vice president of market intelligence at ATTOM. "While foreclosure starts and foreclosure completions both increased compared to last year's artificially low levels, they declined from last month, and lenders often put a moratorium on foreclosures during the holiday season." Highest foreclosure rates remain in Illinois, Delaware, and New Jersey Nationwide one in every 4,580 housing units had a foreclosure filing in November 2022. States with the highest foreclosure rates were again: Illinois (one in every 2,401 housing units with a foreclosure filing); Delaware (one in every 2,736 housing units); New Jersey (one in every 2,916 housing units); South Carolina (one in every 3,195 housing units); and Wyoming (one in every 3,237 housing units). Among the 223 metropolitan statistical areas with a population of at least 200,000, those with the highest foreclosure rates in November 2022 were Cleveland, OH (one in every 1,913 housing units with a foreclosure filing); Columbia, SC (one in every 1,938 housing units); Davenport, IA (one in every 2,000 housing units); Bakersfield, CA (one in every 2,034 housing units); and Atlantic City, NJ (one in every 2,063 housing units). Those metropolitan areas with a population greater than 1 million, with the worst foreclosure rates in November 2022, including Cleveland, OH were: Chicago, IL (one in every 2,221 housing units); Riverside, CA (one in every 2,294 housing units); and Philadelphia, PA (one in every 2,539 housing units). Foreclosure completions up 64 percent from last year Lenders repossessed 3,770 U.S. properties through completed foreclosures (REOs) in November 2022, down 9 percent from last month but up 64 percent from last year. States that had the greatest number of REOs in November 2022, included: Illinois (343 REOs); New York (313 REOs); Pennsylvania (220 REOs); Michigan (210 REOs); and Ohio (208 REOs). Those major metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) with a population greater than 1 million that saw the greatest number of REOs in November 2022 included: Chicago, IL (278 REOs); New York, NY (174 REOs); Philadelphia, PA (103 REOs); Detroit, MI (77 REOs); and Houston, TX (59 REOs). Greatest number of foreclosure starts still in California, Texas, and Florida Lenders started the foreclosure process on 20,686 U.S. properties in November 2022, down 5 percent from last month but up 98 percent from a year ago. "Foreclosure starts in November nearly doubled from last year's numbers, but are still just above 80 percent of pre-pandemic levels," Sharga added. "We may continue to see below-normal foreclosure activity, since unemployment rates are still very low, and mortgage delinquency rates are lower than historical averages." States that had the greatest number of foreclosure starts in November 2022 again included: California (2,244 foreclosure starts); Texas (2,114 foreclosure starts); Florida (1,709 foreclosure starts); New York (1,575 foreclosure starts); and Illinois (1,243 foreclosure starts). Those major metropolitan areas with a population greater than 1 million that had the greatest number of foreclosure starts in November 2022 included: New York, NY (1,593 foreclosure starts); Chicago, IL (1,028 foreclosure starts); Houston, TX (685 foreclosure starts); Miami, FL (657 foreclosure starts); and Los Angeles, CA (642 foreclosure starts). Report methodology The ATTOM U.S. Foreclosure Market Report provides a count of the total number of properties with at least one foreclosure filing entered into the ATTOM Data Warehouse during the month and quarter. Some foreclosure filings entered into the database during the quarter may have been recorded in the previous quarter. Data is collected from more than 3,000 counties nationwide, and those counties account for more than 99 percent of the U.S. population. ATTOM's report incorporates documents filed in all three phases of foreclosure: Default — Notice of Default (NOD) and Lis Pendens (LIS); Auction — Notice of Trustee Sale and Notice of Foreclosure Sale (NTS and NFS); and Real Estate Owned, or REO properties (that have been foreclosed on and repurchased by a bank). For the annual, midyear and quarterly reports, if more than one type of foreclosure document is received for a property during the timeframe, only the most recent filing is counted in the report. The annual, midyear, quarterly and monthly reports all check if the same type of document was filed against a property previously. If so, and if that previous filing occurred within the estimated foreclosure timeframe for the state where the property is located, the report does not count the property in the current year, quarter or month. About ATTOM ATTOM provides premium property data to power products that improve transparency, innovation, efficiency and disruption in a data-driven economy. ATTOM multi-sources property tax, deed, mortgage, foreclosure, environmental risk, natural hazard, and neighborhood data for more than 155 million U.S. residential and commercial properties covering 99 percent of the nation's population. A rigorous data management process involving more than 20 steps validates, standardizes, and enhances the real estate data collected by ATTOM, assigning each property record with a persistent, unique ID — the ATTOM ID. The 30TB ATTOM Data Warehouse fuels innovation in many industries including mortgage, real estate, insurance, marketing, government and more through flexible data delivery solutions that include bulk file licenses, property data APIs, real estate market trends, property reports and more. Also, introducing our newest innovative solution, that offers immediate access and streamlines data management – ATTOM Cloud.

NAR's Volunteering Works Program Announces 2022 Mentoring Recipients
CHICAGO (December 14, 2022) – The National Association of Realtors® and the Good Neighbor Society have announced the recipients of the 14th annual Volunteering Works grants and mentoring program. The program matches Realtors® who work on small-scale charitable efforts with mentors who can help them improve and expand their impact. The five Volunteering Works recipients will receive a $1,000 seed grant and a year of one-on-one mentoring from a member of the Good Neighbor Society. This group is made up of past recipients of NAR's annual Good Neighbor Awards, the highest honor the association awards to Realtors® involved in community service. "This year's Volunteering Works recipients are truly an inspiration. They have dedicated their energy towards giving back to their communities and making a positive impact on the lives of others," said NAR President Kenny Parcell, a Realtor® from Spanish Fork, Utah, and broker-owner of Equity Real Estate Utah. "I am proud they are taking the next step in their volunteering journey with this program. Their selfless commitment to serving others is a shining example of what it means to be a Realtor®." Pictured: Tisha B. Janigan, Yvette Jones-Swanson, Janice Robertson, Lana Homnick-Lee, and Debby Flower. 2022 Volunteering Works Grant and Mentoring Recipients Debra Flower, Valley Realty Co., LLC, Elmwood Park, New Jersey Debby Flower is a volunteer leader with the Military Assistance Pantry, a program of the Great Falls Rotary Foundation that serves 99 veterans and their families. The food pantry has evolved into a resource center, helping veterans with clothing, medical equipment, housing and employment. Flower will receive guidance from 2020 Good Neighbor Award winner Christina Sauger, who will bring new ideas to boost fundraising and help implement a strategic plan. Tisha B. Janigan, She Is Hope Realty, Encino, California In 2021, Tisha B. Janigan founded She Is Hope LA, an organization devoted to building bridges, inspiring confidence and providing educational support for single mothers and their families. Janigan will receive guidance from 2008 Good Neighbor Award winner Lei Barry, who will help Janigan identify housing grants and expand her services. Lana Homnick-Lee, USVI Sotheby's International Realty, Christiansted, U.S. Virgin Islands After fostering more than 200 cats, Lana Homnick-Lee founded R.E.A.L. Cruzan Cats in 2016. The rescue organization promotes the humane treatment of cats on the island of St. Croix through rescue, education and adoption. Homnick-Lee will receive guidance from 2020 Good Neighbor Debra Griggs, who will help Homnick-Lee expand fundraising, boost volunteer participation and increase social media exposure. Yvette Jones-Swanson, Real People Realty, Mokena, Illinois Army veteran Yvette Jones-Swanson founded 100 Pretty Purses for Female Veterans, a nonprofit that provides gift cards, toiletries and other gifts to show respect and connect women who have served our country with resources they need to overcome challenges. Jones-Swanson will receive guidance from 2021 Good Neighbor Sharon Chambers-Gordon, who will help with strategic planning and leadership development. Janice Robertson, Real Estate Partners, Chattanooga, Tennessee Launched from her dining room in 2014, Janice Robertson formed the Snack Pack Ministry, through which hundreds of volunteers assemble meal bags that are provided to more than 2,700 food-insecure children every weekend. Robertson will receive guidance from 2021 Good Neighbor Award winner Bob Bell, who will help raise awareness and expand the program's reach. Volunteering Works recipients were selected based on devotion to their communities through volunteer endeavors and the potential for their good works to be expanded or improved with the help of an expert mentor. The Volunteering Works program is made possible thanks to the generous support of Wells Fargo Home Lending. "Congratulations to all of this year's Volunteering Works mentoring recipients," said Sue Barber, national sales manager for Wells Fargo Home Lending. "We are once again proud to be the sponsor of this great mentoring program, celebrating Realtors® who have made a difference in their communities and want to do more. "At Wells Fargo, we share their passion to make the places we live and work in better for all and hope the grant for their charitable organizations can help further their work. These Realtors® are inspirational, and the mentorship they'll receive from the Good Neighbor Society is invaluable." Wells Fargo & Company is a leading financial services company that has approximately $1.9 trillion in assets, proudly serves one in three U.S. households and more than 10% of small businesses in the U.S., and is a leading middle market banking provider in the U.S. We provide a diversified set of banking, investment and mortgage products and services, as well as consumer and commercial finance, through our four reportable operating segments: Consumer Banking and Lending, Commercial Banking, Corporate and Investment Banking, and Wealth & Investment Management. Wells Fargo ranked No. 41 on Fortune's 2022 rankings of America's largest corporations. In the communities we serve, the company focuses its social impact on building a sustainable, inclusive future for all by supporting housing affordability, small business growth, financial health, and a low-carbon economy. News, insights, and perspectives from Wells Fargo are also available at Wells Fargo Stories. The National Association of Realtors® is America's largest trade association, representing more than 1.5 million members involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries. The term Realtor® is a registered collective membership mark that identifies a real estate professional who is a member of the National Association of Realtors® and subscribes to its strict Code of Ethics.

2023 Housing Outlook: A Post-Pandemic Sales Slump Will Push Home Prices Down for the First Time in a Decade
While Redfin expects high mortgage rates to keep housing costs up and prevent people from moving, high homeowner equity and a resilient job market will stave off a wave of foreclosures SEATTLE — Mortgage rates will take center stage in 2023, with high rates likely to make it the slowest housing-market year since 2011, according to annual end-of-year predictions from Redfin, the technology-powered real estate brokerage. Redfin’s forecasts for mortgage rates, home sales and home-sale prices account for a range of outcomes for inflation, employment and other macroeconomic factors. As such, predictions for those key housing metrics lead with the most likely scenario, followed by other possible outcomes highlighted in the full report that could happen if, for instance, a better-than-expected inflation report results in an earlier or bigger-than-expected mortgage-rate drop. Prediction #1: Home sales will fall to their lowest level since 2011, with a slow recovery in the second half of the year Redfin expects about 16% fewer existing home sales in 2023 than 2022, landing at 4.3 million, with would-be buyers pressing pause due mostly to affordability challenges including high mortgage rates, still-high home prices, persistent inflation and a potential recession. People will only move if they need to. Prediction #2: Mortgage rates will decline, ending the year below 6% Redfin expects 30-year fixed mortgage rates to gradually decline to around 5.8% by the end of the year, with the average 2023 homebuyer’s rate sitting at about 6.1%. Mortgage rates dipping from around 6.5% to 5.8% would save a homebuyer purchasing a $400,000 home about $150 on their monthly mortgage payment. To look at it another way, a homebuyer on a $2,500 monthly budget can afford a $383,750 home with a 6.5% rate; that same buyer could afford a $406,250 home with a 5.8% rate. Still, that’s much less affordable than a few years earlier. With a 3% rate, which was common in 2020 and 2021, that same buyer could afford a $517,000 home. Prediction #3: Home prices will post their first year-over-year decline in a decade, but the U.S. will avoid a wave of foreclosures Redfin predicts the median U.S. home-sale price to drop by roughly 4%—the first annual drop since 2012—to $368,000 in 2023. That’s due to elevated rates and final sale prices starting to reflect homes that went under contract in late 2022. Prices would fall more if not for a lack of homes for sale: Redfin expects new listings to continue declining through most of next year, keeping total inventory near historic lows and preventing prices from plummeting. Very few homeowners are likely to see their mortgages fall underwater even with next year’s anticipated price declines. That’s because the homeowners who’ve had their home for at least a few years have fixed low mortgage payments and plentiful home equity after values skyrocketed during the pandemic. Prediction #4: Midwest, Northeast will hold up best as overall market cools Housing markets in relatively affordable Midwest and East Coast metros, especially in the Chicago area and parts of Connecticut and upstate New York, will hold up relatively well, even as the U.S. market cools. Those areas tend to be more stable than expensive coastal areas, and they didn’t heat up as much during the pandemic homebuying frenzy. Prediction #5: Rents will fall, and many Gen Zers and young millennials will continue renting indefinitely Redfin expects U.S. asking rents to post a small year-over-year decline by mid-2023, with drops coming much sooner in some metros. Some large landlords are likely to offer concessions, such as a free month’s rent or free parking, before dropping asking rents. The rental price declines will be partly due to increasing supply, which has already led to an uptick in vacant units in apartment buildings. Increasing rental supply and declining prices—along with high mortgage rates, limited inventory and other affordability barriers—mean few renters will become buyers next year. Many prospective first-time homebuyers may instead become move-up renters, upgrading from a small urban apartment to a larger apartment or a single-family rental to fit their growing families. Prediction #6: Builders will focus on multifamily rentals Builders will continue to pull back on constructing new homes next year, with year-over-year declines of roughly 25% in building permits and housing starts continuing into 2023. Builders will back off most from building new single-family homes. Construction of single-family homes surged during the pandemic, which means builders need to offload the homes they have on hand without adding more supply to limit their financial losses. They’ll pull back dramatically in some markets like Phoenix and Dallas, where they built too many homes in anticipation of demand that’s failing to materialize. Constructing rental units, including apartment buildings and multifamily houses, will make more financial sense for builders next year, as rental demand won’t fall off as much. Prediction #7: Investor activity will bottom out in the spring, then rebound Real estate investors will purchase about 25% fewer homes than a year earlier, with purchases likely to bottom out in the spring. Investors’ business model is to buy low and sell–or rent–high, and the cash they borrow to buy homes outright is no longer cheap. Fewer iBuyers in the market is also a factor in slowing activity. Some investors, especially newer and smaller ones, will bow out of the housing market entirely and others will slow their activity. But if inflation slows and the Fed eases up on rate hikes as expected, investors will likely start buying more homes in the second half of the year, taking advantage of slightly lower home prices. Prediction #8: Gen Zers will seek jobs and apartments in relatively affordable mid-tier cities Gen Zers are entering into a workforce with more remote-work opportunities than ever before, which means they’ll have more flexibility in where they’ll choose to start their careers than older generations. They can prioritize things like affordability, lifestyle, weather and proximity to family. Prediction #9: Migration from one part of the country to another will ease from the pandemic boom Redfin expects the share of Americans relocating from one metro to another will slow to about 20% in 2023, down from 24% this year. That’s still above pre-pandemic levels of around 18%. In 2023’s slow market, there won’t be a next Austin. Even Austin isn’t Austin anymore: The wave of homebuyers moving into Austin has slowed to a trickle, as many people are now priced out and many remote workers who wanted to relocate have already done so. Prediction #10: Rising disaster-insurance costs will make extremely climate-risky homes even more expensive Some Americans will be priced out of climate-risky areas like beachfront Florida and the hills of California because of ballooning insurance costs. Redfin expects disaster-insurance rates to continue rising next year (and beyond), rendering housing in some areas more expensive. Prediction #11: More cities will follow Minneapolis’ YIMBY example to curb housing expenses More U.S. cities will look to Minneapolis, which in 2019 became the first major city to eliminate single-family-only zoning, for inspiration in keeping rental and home prices under control. Earlier this year, Minneapolis became the first metro area to see rents decline. Prediction #12: Buyers’ agent commissions will rise slightly as fewer agents broker fewer deals at lower prices Next year’s slow housing market is likely to reverse or at least halt the downward trend in buyers’ agent commissions. The hot pandemic-era housing market pushed the typical U.S. buyers’ agent commission down to 2.63% of the home’s sale price in 2022, its lowest level since at least 2012. But declines in home prices and sales will prop up buyers’ agent commissions next year. Sellers will also play a part, with some offering to pay higher commission for buyers’ agents to attract bidders. View the full report, including charts and more detail on predictions, here. About Redfin Redfin is a technology-powered real estate company. We help people find a place to live with brokerage, rentals, lending, title insurance, and renovations services. We sell homes for more money and charge half the fee. We also run the country's #1 real estate brokerage site. Our home-buying customers see homes first with on-demand tours, and our lending and title services help them close quickly. Customers selling a home can have our renovations crew fix up their home to sell for top dollar. Our rentals business empowers millions nationwide to find apartments and houses for rent. Since launching in 2006, we've saved customers more than $1 billion in commissions. We serve more than 100 markets across the U.S. and Canada and employ over 5,000 people.

Take a peek inside Santa's $1.15M North Pole home on Zillow
One of Zillow's most popular listings sits on 25 acres and features a world-class toy shop and a whimsical elf village that you can tour in 3D SEATTLE, Dec. 13, 2022 -- With the holiday season in full swing, Santa is busy getting toys ready at his North Pole cabin and state-of-the-art toy workshop. The secluded property is now worth an estimated $1,154,137, according to Zillow®. By visiting zillow.com/house/santas-house, Zillow users can get a firsthand look inside Santa's home, and even take a 3D tour of the Elf Village. In addition, children can start following Santa's Christmas Eve trek via the official NORAD Santa Tracker, right from Santa's home detail page on Zillow, as he delivers presents around the world. Santa and Mrs. Claus first claimed their home on the Zillow website in 2016, giving people around the world a glimpse into their enchanted lives. More than 3 million people have Zillow-surfed Santa's home, making it one of the most viewed homes on Zillow's website. "Santa gets a peek into millions of homes each year. Now, millions of Zillow surfers are getting a peek into one of the most famous homes in the world," said Amanda Pendleton, Zillow's home trends expert. "Touring Santa's house on Zillow has become a new, high-tech holiday tradition. The immersive virtual 3D Home tour of the Elf Village allows families to explore this corner of the North Pole from the comfort of their living room, preferably by the fire with a mug of hot cocoa." Santa's home was worth just over $650,000 when he first claimed his home on Zillow six years ago. Now the home has appreciated enough to earn Santa a tidy return, and like many homeowners in the U.S., Santa is seeing a surge in his home's equity1. The value of his house has increased 12% over the past year and nearly 77% over the past six years. Zillow first calculated a special Zestimate value for Santa's one-of-a-kind property using comparable homes in remote locations2 and applying a Santa premium3. About Zillow Group Zillow Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: Z and ZG) is reimagining real estate to make it easier to unlock life's next chapter. As the most visited real estate website in the United States, Zillow® and its affiliates offer customers an on-demand experience for selling, buying, renting, or financing with transparency and ease. Zillow Group's affiliates and subsidiaries include Zillow®; Zillow Premier Agent®; Zillow Home Loans™; Zillow Closing Services™; Trulia®; Out East®; StreetEasy®; HotPads®; and ShowingTime+™, which houses ShowingTime®, Bridge Interactive®, and dotloop®. Zillow Home Loans, LLC is an Equal Housing Lender, NMLS #10287 (www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org). 1 Recent data shows that 48.5% of U.S. homeowners with a mortgage are considered 'equity-rich' – meaning the amount they owe on their mortgages is no more than 50% of their home's estimated value. 2 Zillow looked at remote locations on the coast of Alaska, as close to the North Pole as possible. 3 According to a FiveThirtyEight® survey, 78% of respondents cited Christmas as one of their favorite holidays. Given that popularity, Zillow increased the preliminary Zestimate value, which was determined by analyzing comparable homes in remote locations, by 78%, which is what Zillow deemed the "Santa premium."

Homebuying Costs Aren't Coming Down in 2023
Buyers will face home price increases nationally (+5.4%) and in all of the 100 largest markets in 2023, but those who can afford to persist will find more inventory than last year (+22.8%) SANTA CLARA, Calif., Nov. 30, 2022 -- Amid higher mortgage rates and budgets squeezed by inflation, homebuyers looking for affordability in 2023 will find that prices aren't coming down, according to the Realtor.com® 2023 Housing Forecast released today. Instead, with the housing market beginning a gradual adjustment that could last through 2025, what next year will offer buyers is less competition for a growing number of for-sale homes. Overall in 2023,1 Realtor.com® forecasts that buyers and sellers can expect: Average mortgage rates of 7.4%, with early 2023 hikes followed by a slight retreat to 7.1% by year-end. Home sales prices won't come down, but growth will moderate to a single-digit yearly pace (+5.4%) for the first time since 2020. Rents (+6.3% year-over-year) will outpace home prices and likely hit new highs, further adding to budget pressures – especially for first-time buyers. An increase in existing homes for sale (+22.8% year-over-year), as the inventory refresh that began last summer accelerates. Home sales will decline 14.1% year-over-year to 4.53 million, the lowest level since 2012 (see table below). "Compared to the wild ride of the past two years, 2023 will be a slower-paced housing market, which means drastic shifts like price declines may not happen as quickly as some have anticipated. It will be a challenging year for both buyers and sellers, but an important one in setting the stage for home sales to return to a sustainable pace over the next two to three years," said Danielle Hale, Chief Economist for Realtor.com®. "With mortgage rates continuing to climb as the Fed navigates the economy to a soft-ish landing, higher costs will lead to fewer closings, but that doesn't mean homebuying will stop entirely in 2023. Americans who are determined to make a move will find that staying up-to-date on the market, flexibility, creativity and a healthy dose of patience will go a long way toward success in the year ahead." Key 2023 housing trends and wildcards A second wind in the second half. Although home sales are expected to slow overall in 2023, Realtor.com®'s forecast points to the possibility of a second wind in buying activity in the second half of the year. With mortgage rate hikes projected to continue through March, the Spring season will likely be less busy than in a typical year as buyers and sellers recalibrate their expectations around smaller budgets. This break could provide space for demand to renew as mortgage rates dip later in the year, when home shoppers will also have more options and bargaining power. A trifecta of budget barriers awaits buyers. In 2023, incomes are expected to grow (+3.9%), but not enough to offset higher mortgage rates (7.4%) and home prices (+5.4%), creating a trifecta of budget barriers. The typical monthly mortgage payment will be $2,430, 28% higher than in 2022, which will likely price many home shoppers out of the market. This will especially be a concern for first-time buyers. As rents will likely reach new highs, it will leave less room for saving towards a down payment. At the same time, some home shoppers may consider exploring new financial options like adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs), a trend that has already begun to take shape in 2022. It isn't '08. During the mid-2000s housing boom, home sales were elevated for more than five years, and it took another five years for home sales to recover from the economic aftermath. Comparatively, mortgage rate hikes have brought a quicker but less dramatic end to the recent frenzy, during which buyers have been better qualified than in '08. Moving forward, home price growth will slow and may even decline periodically as prices largely stabilize over the next two-to-three years. The homeownership rate is predicted to hold in 2023. Some homeowners could still make bank. In 2023, the typical homeowner is projected to gain $25,650 in equity as prices keep rising. With real estate wealth already much higher than pre-COVID, these trends offer a positive reality check for sellers who have been increasingly pessimistic about entering the market as listing prices have pulled back from last year's peak. While bidding wars won't be the norm in 2023, sellers who have owned their home for a longer period of time are still likely to make a profit. And those living in relatively affordable areas may still command offers above asking, driven by continued home shopper interest in relocating to lower-priced markets. 2023 puts the "wild" in wildcards: Political and economic events can always shake up the housing outlook, as was the case with major financial shifts in 2022. Along with factors including supply chain disruptions and the conflict in Ukraine, markets have largely begun to adjust for these changes, such as with the Fed's efforts to combat inflation with rate hikes. As such, forecasted 2023 housing trends don't anticipate a major shakeup like a recession, but it's still a possibility. Buyers and sellers should keep an eye out for risk signs like a substantial weakening in the jobs market, beyond the mild uptick in unemployment that is projected, as businesses are potentially disrupted by shifting geopolitical, financial and economic conditions. Although a potential recession may lead to lower mortgage rates, ultimately buyers' purchasing power would suffer. And for sellers, this would likely mean less demand and potential price drops. "Of the many factors that are expected to affect the housing market in 2023, affordability tops the list of issues most likely to make or break buyers' plans. Still, our forecast does offer promise for home shoppers who are well-prepared. Tools like Realtor.com®'s Buying Power can help you understand how various rate changes and options impact your budget, and seamlessly integrate into the home search experience to help you stay on track financially," Hale added. 2023 Forecasted Housing Metrics & Historical Data – National 2023 Forecasted Housing Metrics – 100 Largest U.S. Metros (in alphabetical order) Methodology Realtor.com®'s model-based forecast uses data on the housing market and overall economy to estimate values for these variables in the year ahead. About Realtor.com® Realtor.com® is an open real estate marketplace built for everyone. Realtor.com® pioneered the world of digital real estate more than 25 years ago. Today, through its website and mobile apps, Realtor.com® is a trusted guide for consumers, empowering more people to find their way home by breaking down barriers, helping them make the right connections, and creating confidence through expert insights and guidance. For professionals, Realtor.com® is a trusted partner for business growth, offering consumer connections and branding solutions that help them succeed in today's on-demand world. Realtor.com® is operated by News Corp [Nasdaq: NWS, NWSA] [ASX: NWS, NWSLV] subsidiary Move, Inc. For more information, visit Realtor.com.

Analysis from ATTOM Reveals How Grocery Store Locations Impact the U.S. Housing Market
Trader Joe's leads the pack for homeowners, while ALDI wins among investors; Average home value near Trader Joe's is $987,923, compared to $891,416 near Whole Foods and $321,116 near ALDI IRVINE, Calif. – Nov. 22, 2022 — ATTOM, a leading curator of real estate data nationwide for land and property data, today released its 2022 Grocery Store Wars analysis, which shows how living near a Trader Joe's, a Whole Foods or an ALDI might affect a home's value – as a homebuyer based on home price appreciation and home equity, or as an investor looking for the best home flipping returns and home seller ROI. For this analysis, ATTOM looked at current average home values, 5-year home price appreciation for YTD 2022 vs. YTD 2017, current average home equity, home seller profits, and home flipping rates in U.S. zip codes with a least one Whole Foods store, one Trader Joe's store and one ALDI store. (See full methodology enclosed below.) "Smart homebuyers might want to consider where they'll do their grocery shopping when they're shopping for a new home." said Rick Sharga, executive vice president of market intelligence at ATTOM. "It turns out that being located near grocery stores isn't only a matter of convenience for homeowners but can have a significant impact on equity and home values as well. And that impact can vary pretty widely depending on which grocery store is in the neighborhood." For Homeowners While homes near a Trader Joe's realized an average 5-year home price appreciation of 49 percent, and homes near a Whole Foods saw an average appreciation of 45 percent, ALDI had a slight advantage at 58 percent. However, not only does Trader Joe's lead the pack for homeowners with an average home value at $987,923, but it also takes the lead in home equity with homeowners earning an average of 50 percent ($520,842) equity, compared to Whole Foods at 45 percent ($433,311) and ALDI at 38 percent ($132,643). The average value for homes near a Whole Foods is $891,416, and $321,116 for homes near an ALDI. For Investors Properties near an ALDI are ripe for investors, with an average gross flipping ROI of 54 percent, compared to properties near a Whole Foods which had an average gross flipping ROI of 28 percent and Trader Joe's at 25 percent. Properties near an ALDI have an average home seller ROI of 61 percent, while properties near a Trader Joe's sit at 58 percent, and 51 percent for properties near a Whole Foods. Report methodology For this analysis ATTOM looked at current average home values, 5-year home price appreciation for YTD (Q1-Q3) 2022 vs. YTD (Q1-Q3) 2017, current average home equity, home seller profits, and home flipping rates in U.S. zip codes with a least one Whole Foods store, one Trader Joe's store and one ALDI store. Grocery store locations are from the USDA. About ATTOM ATTOM provides premium property data to power products that improve transparency, innovation, efficiency and disruption in a data-driven economy. ATTOM multi-sources property tax, deed, mortgage, foreclosure, environmental risk, natural hazard, and neighborhood data for more than 155 million U.S. residential and commercial properties covering 99 percent of the nation's population. A rigorous data management process involving more than 20 steps validates, standardizes, and enhances the real estate data collected by ATTOM, assigning each property record with a persistent, unique ID — the ATTOM ID. The 30TB ATTOM Data Warehouse fuels innovation in many industries including mortgage, real estate, insurance, marketing, government and more through flexible data delivery solutions that include bulk file licenses, property data APIs, real estate market trends, property reports and more. Also, introducing our newest innovative solution, that offers immediate access and streamlines data management – ATTOM Cloud.

Steep Drop in Mortgage Lending Continues Across U.S. in Third Quarter, Hitting Three-Year Low
Total Loans Down Another 19 Percent Quarterly, Marking Sixth Straight Drop; Refinance Lending Declines Another 31 Percent Quarterly, While Purchase Loans Decrease 16 Percent; Drop-offs Far Outweigh Ongoing Rise in Home-Equity Lending IRVINE, Calif. – Nov. 17, 2022 — ATTOM, a leading curator of real estate data nationwide for land and property data, today released its third-quarter 2022 U.S. Residential Property Mortgage Origination Report, which shows that 1.97 million mortgages secured by residential property (1 to 4 units) were originated in the third quarter of 2022 in the United States. That figure was down 19 percent from the second quarter of 2022 – the sixth quarterly decrease in a row – and down 47 percent from the third quarter of 2021 – the biggest annual drop in 21 years. The continued decline in residential lending resulted from double-digit downturns in both refinance and purchase loan activity that far outweighed another increase in home-equity credit lines. Overall, lenders issued $636.5 billion worth of mortgages in the third quarter of 2022. That was down quarterly by 22 percent and 46 percent annually. As with the number of loans, the annual decrease in the dollar volume of mortgages stood out as the largest since at least 2001 and was the latest sign that the 11-year U.S. housing market boom is losing steam. "There are no surprises in this quarter's loan origination numbers, as the unprecedented jump in mortgage rates has battered both the purchase and refinance markets," said Rick Sharga, executive vice president of market intelligence at ATTOM. "Prospective homebuyers have been priced out of the market by the combination of 7 percent mortgage rates and higher home prices. And refinance activity will probably continue to decline, since the majority of homeowners have loans with sub-4 percent interest rates." The continued dip came as just 661,000 residential loans were rolled over into new mortgages and borrowers took out only 943,000 loans to buy homes during the third quarter of 2022. During a period when mortgage interest rates continued to climb, refinancing activity was down 31 percent from the second quarter of 2022 and 68 percent from a year earlier. Refinancing activity has dropped for six consecutive quarters, to a level that is just one-quarter of what it was in early 2021. The dollar volume of refinance loans in the period running from July through September was down 33 percent from the prior quarter and 67 percent annually, to $212 billion. The number of purchase loans, meanwhile, slumped by 16 percent quarterly and 33 percent annually, while the dollar volume decreased to $353.9 billion. Only a 5 percent quarterly jump in the number and value of HELOCs – the third quarterly straight gain – kept the industry from seeing an across-the-board contraction. By the end of the third quarter, refinance activity represented just a third of overall mortgages, compared to two-thirds as recently as the first quarter of last year. Purchase lending continued at just under half of all activity in the third quarter of 2022, while home-equity packages comprised one of every five mortgage deals completed. That ratio for so-called HELOC loans was up from one of every 21 a year and a half ago. The most recent mortgage numbers are among the strongest reflections yet of a U.S. housing market that has cooled considerably after 11 years of nearly uninterrupted gains. Total mortgages drop at fastest annual pace since 2001 Banks and other lenders issued 1,968,930 residential mortgages in the third quarter of 2022. That was down 18.7 percent from 2,421,540 in the second quarter of 2022 and down 46.9 percent from 3,708,000 in the third quarter of 2021. The annual decline marked the largest since at least 2001. The $636.5 billion dollar volume of loans in the third quarter was down 22.4 percent from $819.9 billion in the prior quarter and was 46.4 percent less than the $1.19 trillion lent in the third quarter of 2021. Overall lending activity decreased from the second quarter of 2022 to the third quarter of 2022 in 206, or 98 percent, of the 210 metropolitan statistical areas around the U.S. with a population of more than 200,000 and at least 1,000 total residential mortgages issued in the third quarter of 2022. Total lending activity was down at least 15 percent in 116 of the metros with enough data to analyze (55 percent). The largest quarterly decreases were in Myrtle Beach, SC (total lending down 52.7 percent); Knoxville, TN (down 44.5 percent); Charleston, SC (down 43 percent); Ogden, UT (down 41 percent) and Buffalo, NY (down 36.2 percent). Aside from Buffalo, metro areas with a population of least 1 million that had the biggest decreases in total loans from the second quarter to the third quarter of 2022 were St. Louis, MO (down 35.8 percent); Miami, FL (down 30.4 percent); Washington, DC (down 30.1 percent) and San Jose, CA (down 28.2 percent). The biggest increases, or smallest decreases, in the total number of mortgages from the second quarter to the third quarter of 2022 were in Hartford, CT (up 5 percent); Syracuse, NY (up 0.8 percent); Claremont-Lebanon, NH (up 0.8 percent); Warner Robins, GA (up 0.6 percent) and York, PA (down 0.6 percent). No metro areas with a population of at least 1 million aside from Hartford saw total loan originations increase from the second to the third quarter of this year. Refinance mortgage originations slump to lowest point since early 2019 Lenders issued 660,767 residential refinance mortgages in the third quarter of 2022 – the smallest count since the first quarter of 2019. The latest number was down 31 percent from 957,515 in second quarter of 2022, 67.9 percent from 2,059,465 in the third quarter of 2021 and 75.3 percent from a peak of 2,680,523 hit in the first quarter of last year. It fell for the sixth straight quarter, the longest run of declines this century. The $212 billion dollar volume of refinance packages in the third quarter of 2022 was down 33 percent from $316.4 billion in the prior quarter and down 67.1 percent from $645.2 billion in the third quarter of 2021. Refinancing activity decreased from the second quarter of 2022 to the third quarter of 2022 in 208, or 99 percent, of the 210 metropolitan statistical areas around the country with enough data to analyze. Activity dropped quarterly by at least 25 percent in 131 metro areas (62 percent). The largest quarterly decreases were in Myrtle Beach, SC (refinance loans down 62 percent); Buffalo, NY (down 59.4 percent); Salinas, CA (down 54.7 percent); Knoxville, TN (down 52.4 percent) and Charleston, SC (down 49.5 percent). Aside from Buffalo, metro areas with a population of least 1 million that had the biggest decreases in refinance activity from the second quarter to the third quarter of this year were Washington, DC (down 46.9 percent); New York, NY (down 46 percent); Miami, FL (down 45.5 percent) and St. Louis, MO (down 45 percent). The only metro areas where refinance lending increased from the second quarter to the third quarter were Sioux Falls, SD (up 11.4 percent) and Hartford, CT (up 3.2 percent). Purchase mortgages decrease for fourth time in last five quarters Lenders originated 943,242 purchase mortgages in the third quarter of 2022. That was down 15.6 percent from 1,116,939 in the second quarter – the fourth drop in the last five quarters. It also was down 32.7 percent from 1,401,578 in the third quarter of 2021 – the biggest annual decline this century. The $353.9 billion dollar volume of purchase loans in the third quarter of 2022 was down 18.9 percent from $436.2 billion in the prior quarter and down 28.4 percent from $494 billion a year earlier. Residential purchase-mortgage originations decreased from the second quarter of 2022 to the third quarter of 2022 in 173 of the 210 metro areas in the report (82 percent) and dipped annually in 206 metro areas (98 percent). The largest quarterly decreases were in Myrtle Beach, SC (purchase loans down 50.8 percent); Ogden, UT (down 47.6 percent); Naples, FL (down 41.8 percent); Charleston, SC (down 41.3 percent) and Knoxville, TN (down 40.1 percent). Metro areas with a population of at least 1 million that saw the biggest quarterly decreases in purchase originations in the third quarter of 2022 were St. Louis, MO (down 30.3 percent); San Jose, CA (down 30.3 percent); San Francisco, CA (down 29.3 percent); Los Angeles, CA (down 28.6 percent) and Miami, FL (down 28.5 percent). Residential purchase-mortgage lending increased most from the second quarter to the third quarter of 2022 in Syracuse, NY (up 24.9 percent); Claremont-Lebanon, NH (up 24.3 percent); Rochester, NY (up 20 percent); Dayton, OH (up 18.9 percent) and Kalamazoo, MI (up 15.7 percent). Aside from Rochester, metro areas with a population of at least 1 million where purchase originations rose most from the second to the third quarter were Minneapolis, MN (up 11.9 percent); Hartford, CT (up 6.1 percent); Grand Rapids, MI (up 5.2 percent) and Pittsburgh, PA (up 0.5 percent). HELOC lending up for fifth time in six quarters A total of 364,921 home-equity lines of credit (HELOCs) were originated on residential properties in the third quarter of 2022, up 5.1 percent from 347,086 in the prior quarter and up 47.8 percent from 246,957 in the third quarter of 2021. HELOC activity increased for the fifth time in six quarters after it had decreased in each of the prior six quarters. The $70.5 billion third-quarter 2022 volume of HELOC loans was up 4.7 percent from $67.3 billion in the second quarter of 2022 and 47.5 percent from $47.8 billion in the third quarter of last year, hitting the highest point in four years. HELOCs comprised 18.5 percent of all third-quarter 2022 loans – almost four times the 4.8 percent level from the first quarter of 2021. "While HELOC activity has dramatically increased over the past few quarters, its growth rate slowed down significantly on a quarter-to-quarter basis, which raises the question of whether we might be at or near a cyclical peak in HELOC activity," Sharga added. "Even with the recent increases, HELOC volume is still nowhere near the record level of activity we saw in the mid-2000s during the run-up to the financial crisis." The largest increases in metro areas with a population of at least 1 million were in New Orleans, LA (home-equity loans up 52.8 percent); Houston, TX (up 47.5 percent); Dallas, TX (up 35.4 percent); Tucson, AZ (up 32.8 percent); and Atlanta, GA (up 30.9 percent). The largest quarterly decreases in HELOCs among metro areas with a population of at least 1 million were in Buffalo, NY (down 31.9 percent); St. Louis, MO (down 26.7 percent); Honolulu, HI (down 14.5 percent); San Jose, CA (down 10.9 percent) and Rochester, NY (down 9.1 percent). FHA and VA loan portions tick upward Mortgages backed by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) rose as a portion of all lending for the fourth straight quarter, accounting for 224,021, or 11.4 percent, of all residential property loans originated in the third quarter of 2022. That was up from 10.7 percent in the second quarter of 2022 and 9.3 percent in the third quarter of 2021. Residential loans backed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) accounted for 103,314 or 5.2 percent, of all residential property loans originated in the third quarter of 2022. That was up from 5.1 percent in the previous quarter but still down from 6.3 percent a year earlier. VA lending as a portion of all loans rose after seven consecutive quarterly declines. Typical amount borrowed to finance purchase decreases to three-year low The median amount borrowed nationwide to buy a home went down in the third quarter of 2022 for the first time in three years, while the typical down payment on homes purchased with financing also decreased. At the same time, the ratio of median down payments to home prices went down. Among homes purchased with financing in the third quarter of 2022, the median loan amount was $315,000. That was down 4.5 percent from $330,000 the prior quarter, following 10 straight increases. However, it was still up 4.2 percent from $302,197 in the same period in 2021. The median down payment on single-family homes and condos purchased with financing in the third quarter of 2022 decreased to $34,975, down 12.5 percent from $39,980 in the previous quarter, although still up 11.9 percent from $31,250 in the third quarter of 2021. The typical down payment in the third quarter of this year represented 9.3 percent of the purchase price, down from 10.2 percent in the prior quarter but still up from 8.9 percent a year earlier. Report methodology ATTOM analyzed recorded mortgage and deed of trust data for single-family homes, condos, town homes and multi-family properties of two to four units for this report. Each recorded mortgage or deed of trust was counted as a separate loan origination. Dollar volume was calculated by multiplying the total number of loan originations by the average loan amount for those loan originations. About ATTOM ATTOM provides premium property data to power products that improve transparency, innovation, efficiency and disruption in a data-driven economy. ATTOM multi-sources property tax, deed, mortgage, foreclosure, environmental risk, natural hazard, and neighborhood data for more than 155 million U.S. residential and commercial properties covering 99 percent of the nation's population. A rigorous data management process involving more than 20 steps validates, standardizes, and enhances the real estate data collected by ATTOM, assigning each property record with a persistent, unique ID — the ATTOM ID. The 30TB ATTOM Data Warehouse fuels innovation in many industries including mortgage, real estate, insurance, marketing, government and more through flexible data delivery solutions that include bulk file licenses, property data APIs, real estate market trends, property reports and more. Also, introducing our newest innovative solution, that offers immediate access and streamlines data management – ATTOM Cloud.

New Realtor.com Data Highlights the Impact of Wildfire and Flood Risk on Consumer Behavior and Home Prices
Homebuyers show stronger demand for safer homes in at-risk areas; safer homes appreciate slightly faster than those with higher risk SANTA CLARA, Calif., Nov. 16, 2022 -- More than $8.8 trillion in home value is at moderate-to-high risk of wildfire and $6.5 trillion in home value is at moderate-to-high risk of flood damage over the next 30 years, according to data from Realtor.com® and First Street Foundation. As the frequency and intensity of weather events increases, it's not surprising that consumers are taking these issues into account when looking for a home. New research released today by Realtor.com® found that homebuyers generally show a preference for lower risk homes, which in turn appreciate at a slightly faster pace, and that the preference can be more pronounced in some areas of higher risk where awareness may be greater. Homes with less climate risk appreciate faster Homes with a low risk of flood damage appreciate at 1.5 percentage points faster than homes with a high risk of flood damage. During the last flood-related disaster season (July - Sept. 2021), the growth rate gap increased to 1.7 percentage points, suggesting that flood risk was top-of-mind for buyers. Homes at low risk of wildfire appreciate at 3.7 percentage points faster than homes at high risk of wildfire. During the last wildfire season (July - Sept. 2021), the growth rate gap held steady at 3.7 percentage points, suggesting that awareness may be lower for wildfire than it is for flood. A recent Realtor.com® survey found that 71% of recent homebuyers considered the risk of natural disasters when deciding where to move and 47% are more concerned about natural disasters today than they were five years ago. Additionally, a 2021 Realtor.com® survey found that 34% of homeowners would consider moving or selling their home due to concerns about natural disasters. "Our data shows that users have a small but consistent preference toward lower risk homes. Buying a home is an extremely personal decision and many people are willing to take on more risk in order to have a water view or find a more affordable property," said Danielle Hale, Chief Economist at Realtor.com®. "Consumers are increasingly aware of the risk that wildfires and flooding can have on their home. However, it's important to keep in mind that while climate-related risk is a factor that consumers might take into account, it is one of many considerations when deciding where to live and what home to purchase." Homebuyers weighing climate risks when shopping Home shoppers on Realtor.com® who interact with the flood feature tend to shift toward viewing homes with lower risk than where they began. This is especially true in Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina where consumers shift to viewing details for homes with 5-7% lower risk scores. On the other hand, users in Mississippi shift from viewing homes with lower risk to homes with a higher risk of flooding, indicating that the users are willing to take some risk to find a property that meets their needs and may be more price sensitive. Wildfires seem to be less top-of-mind for home shoppers. In California, Oregon and Utah consumers who interact with the tool continue to look at homes with the same or similar risk scores. However, in Arizona, Florida and Mississippi, users of the tool tend to shift toward properties with higher risk, suggesting that awareness of wildfire risk might be lower than for flood or that consumers might be more price sensitive. "We felt that it was important to add natural disaster information to Realtor.com® to help home shoppers and homeowners better understand their risks and take preventative steps to help mitigate that risk," said Sara Brinton, lead product manager at Realtor.com®. "In the two years since we added flood risk data to the site, it has become one of our most popular features and we're proud to be able to provide this important information to consumers so that they can make informed decisions during the home shopping process." About Realtor.com® Realtor.com® is an open real estate marketplace built for everyone. Realtor.com® pioneered the world of digital real estate more than 25 years ago. Today, through its website and mobile apps, Realtor.com® is a trusted guide for consumers, empowering more people to find their way home by breaking down barriers, helping them make the right connections, and creating confidence through expert insights and guidance. For professionals, Realtor.com® is a trusted partner for business growth, offering consumer connections and branding solutions that help them succeed in today's on-demand world. Realtor.com® is operated by News Corp [Nasdaq: NWS, NWSA] [ASX: NWS, NWSLV] subsidiary Move, Inc. For more information, visit Realtor.com.

Chime Unveils Geographic Farming Innovation to Elevate Lead Conversion
New Geo-Farming Feature Combines Local Market Intelligence with AI-Powered Marketing Automation PHOENIX, Nov. 10, 2022 -- Chime Technologies, an award-winning real estate technology innovator, today announced Geographic Farming, a new feature in the Chime platform. A unique geo-farming capability, Chime's latest innovation combines deep local market intelligence with AI-powered marketing automation. Real estate professionals can now do more than simply blanket a neighborhood with mailers and instead make data-driven decisions about where to invest marketing resources, understand if and how they are gaining market share, and elevate lead conversion with fully automated marketing campaigns. Unlike other geo-farming solutions, Chime's Geographic Farming innovation provides a complete market analysis with deep local intelligence. After drawing a geo-fenced area on a map through the Chime user interface, customers can review the market analysis data on area sales volume, average sales price, competitor market share, potential gross commission income (CGI) and more. From there fully automated campaigns are easy to configure and are integrated directly into Chime CRM to maximize lead engagement, management, and nurturing. With Chime's geo-farming feature, real estate professionals can: Clearly identify areas of opportunity, potential sales volume, and GCI; Focus marketing dollars on the highest potential neighborhoods; Track engagement and leads by either text or QR code; Leverage Chime Smart Plans and automations based on lead engagement; Compare their progress versus competitors as market share is gained. "Geo-farming is not a new strategy for agents looking to boost brand awareness in a given area, but in today's dynamic market, it's not enough to simply target customers on a map," said Stuart Sim of Chime. "With our latest capability, real estate agents can dive deeper and clearly identify areas of opportunity based on potential sales volume or CGI. All that data and analysis ensures they have the insights needed to dominate their local market and do so cost-effectively." To learn more, visit chime.me. About Chime Technologies Chime is an award-winning real estate technology innovator headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona. Our AI-powered platform empowers real estate professionals, teams, and brokerages with the tools they need to automate lead generation operations, drive conversions, and grow their business. Chime Technologies operates as a US subsidiary of Renren, Inc. (RENN). For more information, visit www.chime.me.

Rental Demand Soars as Mortgage Rates Continue to Rise
Rental Inquiries by Real Estate Professionals hit record highs in six out of ten major U.S. rental markets. SOMERVILLE, MA, NOVEMBER 10, 2022 — Today, Rental Beast, the rental data and software solution provider exclusively recommended by the National Association of REALTORS®, released reports indicating increased rental demand, including significant year-over-year increases in rental searches conducted by real estate sales professionals. Rental searches conducted by licensed real estate agents and REALTORS® last quarter nearly doubled in six out of ten U.S. rental markets1. Miami, Florida saw the sharpest increase (215%), followed by Denver, CO (211%), and Houston, TX (121%): A reliable and early indicator of rental demand as well as the industry's affinity for monetizing an estimated $12 billion in annual leasing commissions1, Rental Beast measures the volume of searches executed by real estate professionals within its platform ecosystem. Last quarter's increase in rental inquiries are largely driven by potential buyers sidelined by affordability. Mortgage rates remain near their highest levels since 2002, and alongside high home prices and a shortage of properties for sale, millions of would-be home buyers nationwide have been priced out of the home sales market. "Persistent inflation has proven quite harmful to the housing market," said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. "The Federal Reserve has had to drastically raise interest rates to quell inflation, which has resulted in far fewer buyers and even fewer sellers."2 Would-be buyers remaining in rentals are shifting norms within the rental market as well. Household incomes among new lease signers were up nearly 13%, year over year, through August, and rent collections improved as well, at 95.4%, up from 94.9% the year before3. "The housing market is in transition, with today's renters looking more and more like home buyers. REALTORS® across the nation are taking notice," says Ishay Grinberg, Rental Beast founder and CEO. "Now – more than ever – rentals matter to real estate sales professionals, as REALTORS® are increasingly turning to the rental market to future-proof their businesses." Over the past twelve months, Rental Beast announced partnerships with major multiple listing services throughout the United States, providing its lead-to-lease-to-buy platform and rental inventory through a secure integration designed to expand access to rentals. Rental Beast also launched the California Rental Listing Service (CARLS), the first state-wide rental listing service in the nation. Developed in partnership with the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®, CARLS.com has seen faster than expected adoption and utilization of the platform. While barely a month old, nearly 10,000 C.A.R. members have pre-registered or claimed accounts, with thousands of C.A.R. members adding or claiming rental units within the Service. We're thrilled—and we see C.A.R. member engagement as a validation of Rental Beast's unique position as the industry's source of truth for what REALTORS® need most: access to rental inventory." Earlier this year, Rental Beast also launched a strategic partnership with the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), offering FCRA-compliant rental application and tenant screening services, as well as rental education to NAR's 1.8 million members. Grinberg characterizes the recent, industry-wide focus on rentals as both timely and long overdue. "Closing rental transactions has been and remains a potent source of income for newly licensed sales professionals, but it's interesting to note the bulk of our platform growth is driven by REALTORS® with more than 8 years' experience in the industry." "2023, is likely to be a transformative year for REALTORS®", says Grinberg. "And while we may be challenged by short-term volatility in the sales market, the industry will adjust and embrace a new norm; and REALTORS working with renters and investors today will have an ever-ready pipeline of future home buyers in hand." 1Source: Rental Beast database of more than 11 million owner-sourced rental listings 2Source: Copyright ©2022 "Pending Home Sales Waned 10.2% in September" National Association of REALTORS®. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. October 28th, 2022, https://www.nar.realtor/newsroom/pending-home-sales-waned-10-2-in-september 3Source: RealPage, October 4th, 2022 About Rental Beast Rental Beast is a leading real estate technology firm with an end-to-end SaaS platform designed to empower real estate professionals and the nation's most comprehensive database of more than ten million rental properties. Sourced directly from property owners, updated in real-time, and offering a fulfillment-grade rental dataset, the Rental Beast database provides real estate professionals with an unparalleled view of all properties and owner types. Utilizing a seamless and secure integration, participating MLSs and REALTOR® Associations can capture thousands of properties that are normally off-MLS inventory, and leverage essential search, data ingestion, and maintenance systems needed to help member agents and subscribers capture their share of $12 billion in annual leasing commissions. Rental Beast is a proud member of the NAR's REALTOR Benefits® Program, an is NAR's exclusive recommended rental software provider. Rental Beast is also recognized and supported by Second Century Ventures, NAR's capital and strategic growth arm, and is a proud member of the REACH-Canada accelerator program. Learn more at rentalbeast.com/MLS.

The Residential Real Estate Council Hires CEO
CHICAGO, Nov. 08, 2022 -- The Residential Real Estate Council (RRC), the real estate industry's leading education and networking membership organization, is proud to announce the start of Jeff Hornberger as the new Chief Executive Officer. Hornberger is a seasoned global business development executive with over 20 years of experience with an emphasis on general management, sales, marketing, public relations, and operations in both the private and association sector across a variety of industries. His appointment comes after an extensive nationwide selection process by the board and officially started with the Council on Nov. 1, 2022. Hornberger's most recent role was as the Chief Executive Officer of the Women's Council of Realtors®. Prior to that, he served in a variety of roles at the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (NAR) in Chicago for 15 years. Hornberger, who is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, was the Director of Global Alliances for NAR, where he traveled to over 35 countries on behalf of global real estate with business development successes in events, education, and membership. Additionally, he was the Managing Director of the NAR Commercial Real Estate Division where we worked closely with Institutes, Societies, & Councils. "Jeff's history as a respected and influential leader locally and globally within our industry, and his passion for educational excellence, make him synchronous with RRC's strategic vision. On behalf of the board of directors, we hope that the members and staff share in our excitement as we welcome him," said 2022 RRC National President Holli Woodward. "I'm excited and honored to be named RRC's next CEO," said Hornberger. "I'm looking forward to my new role and to working with the Residential Real Estate Council leaders and staff to serve our members and to further the RRC being the industry's source for timely, leading-edge education and gold standard designation for achievement and professionalism in real estate domestically and globally." Hornberger holds the Realtor® Certified Executive (RCE) designation since 2007, and in 2016, he earned his Certified Association Executive (CAE). ABOUT RRC & CRS Designation The Residential Real Estate Council is the largest not-for-profit affiliate of the National Association of REALTORS® comprised of more than 28,000 members. The Council supports its members with advanced education, business tools and networking support. It also awards the CRS Designation to experienced agents who have completed advanced professional training and demonstrated outstanding professional achievement in residential real estate.

Home showing traffic continues to decline, still remains above pre-pandemic norms
Buyer foot traffic decreased from last month and last year amid higher mortgage rates and continued inventory challenges, according to the latest data from ShowingTime CHICAGO, Oct. 27, 2022 – Home showing traffic continued its decline in September, according to the latest data from the ShowingTime Showing Index®. Affordability remains a major challenge for home shoppers, despite recent moderate price declines and an increase in the number of homes for sale from this time last year. Mortgage affordability challenges combined with normal seasonal slowdown — showing traffic is down 7% from last month, in line with previous years — mean fewer buyers are engaging in home showings. "In addition to the regular seasonal slowdown we would expect, buyers who can't overcome affordability challenges are opting out of the market and contributing to the fewer showings we saw in September," said Mike Lane, vice president of sales and industry for ShowingTime+. A majority of listings averaged between four and nine showings. The number of markets that saw increases in the number of showings per listing fell from 70 to 14, with buyers seeing less competition and enjoying more time and options. Among these markets were Boise and San Francisco, which both saw 3% increases in showings per listing month over month. All regions and the U.S. as a whole saw monthly and yearly declines in showing traffic. The Midwest and Northeast regions saw year-over-year declines of 11.2% and 10.1%, respectively. The South is down 27% from last year, while the Western region again led all regions in year-over-year declines, with a drop of 45%. The West and South are home to previous red-hot pandemic markets, including Seattle, Denver, Austin and Phoenix. "At inflection points like this, while it's difficult to forecast what will happen, we continue to believe that fall showing activity remains a leading indicator of spring market conditions. September's data hints at inventory challenges continuing into next year," Lane said. About ShowingTime ShowingTime® is an industry leader in home touring technology and part of the ShowingTime+™ technology suite. ShowingTime+ is a Zillow Group, Inc. brand. ShowingTime's technology and services simplify the tour scheduling process for buyers, sellers and agents across the industry. ShowingTime products are used in hundreds of MLSs representing more than 1 million real estate professionals across the U.S. and Canada.

Pressure is back on sellers to attract buyers as demand softens
Homes that sell are doing so quickly, while others are languishing on the market SEATTLE, Oct. 31, 2022 -- The housing market is rebalancing after the most competitive and frenetic period in recent memory. While homes that sell are still doing so relatively quickly — slower than at the height of last year's frenzy, but more quickly than pre-pandemic norms — a new Zillow® analysis finds other homes are lingering on the market much longer, pointing to the need for sellers to build an attractive and competitively priced listing to attract a buyer in today's market. Differences in days to pending (the median number of days homes that sell have been listed before an offer is accepted) and the age of inventory (the median number of days homes currently listed for sale have been on the market) can reveal valuable information for home sellers, especially during a time of transition, like now. Markets with a large spread in these two metrics may be seeing certain home types, neighborhoods or price points attracting buyers, while others are not. Homes that went pending in September typically did so after 19 days. That's a far cry from the record lows seen during much of the pandemic when homes went pending after a week on the market, but 10 days faster than in September 2019. However, that only takes into account homes that find a buyer. Looking at the full stock of for-sale listings, homes have been on the market a median of 54 days as of mid-October, a 45% increase from a year earlier. "Last year, sellers could seemingly list their home at any price and see multiple offers roll in above list price within days," said Zillow senior economist Nicole Bachaud. "Now, buyers have some negotiating power, and sellers are under pressure. Buyers are still out there and willing to buy when they find the right home at the right price, which will provide a floor for the price declines we are currently seeing. But sellers need to do things right to attract the attention of these buyers — pricing their home competitively and making their listing attractive to online home shoppers. Especially in a market that's quickly changing like today's, working with an experienced agent who knows the local market is valuable." Since an all-time low of 19 days in early April, the median age of inventory on Zillow has grown at the fastest rate since at least 2018, when this analysis began. While demand has certainly cooled — Zillow estimates there are 32% fewer active buyers than there were a year ago, though still more than there were in September 2019 — the rapid growth in the median age of inventory may say more about how intensely competitive last year was than about what is happening today. In 2021, the flow of new listings was on par with prior years, but there were so many buyers flooding the market that listings were gone in the blink of an eye. Even now, the median age of inventory is 30% below pre-pandemic norms. If age of inventory continues to grow at this rapid pace — not a bad bet given we are nearing what is usually the slowest time of year for the housing market — inventory is estimated to be on the market a median of 68 days by the end of this year. That would be more than a month shorter than before the pandemic. For-sale homes had typically been on the market for 100 days at the end of both 2018 and 2019. The rapid increase in the age of inventory is primarily because the dip in buyer demand has been deeper than the drop in new listings. Buyers are pulling back primarily due to affordability hurdles, as mortgage rates have risen, and the pace of sales has slowed. Homeowners are reluctant to sell and give up what is likely a mortgage rate of around 3% in order to buy a new home at today's interest rates. The lack of new inventory hitting the market means the share of inventory taken up by listings a week old or less is down 42% from a year ago. Markets in which both days to pending and the median age of inventory are growing indicate demand is slowing across the board. Many of these markets were among the hottest during the height of last year's buying frenzy and had plenty of room to cool. Austin and Las Vegas are prime examples. Some markets have seen days to pending stay fairly low, while the median age of inventory has risen much more. This indicates that a subset of homes continue to see strong competition as buyers snatch them off the market quickly, while others linger. One example is St. Louis, where typical days to pending has remained about a week, while the median age of inventory has jumped to 40 days from a low of nine days this spring. Homeowners who are thinking about selling their home should consider their online curb appeal. Zillow 3D Home tours can help a listing stand out — two-thirds of buyers say 3D tours help them get a better feel for the space than static photos, and prior Zillow research has shown homes that feature a Zillow 3D Home tour are more likely to be "favorited" (saved on Zillow for future viewings) and viewed than those listings without. Hiring an agent with a pulse on a seller's local market can help as well, advising the seller through all the critical decisions during the process. Sellers can click Agent Finder on the Zillow homepage to help identify the right agent by reading customer reviews and reviewing an agent's recent sale history. *Table ordered by market size **Pre-pandemic average is the average of the median ages of inventory in the weeks of October 21, 2018 and October 20, 2019 About Zillow Group Zillow Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: Z and ZG) is reimagining real estate to make it easier to unlock life's next chapter. As the most visited real estate website in the United States, Zillow® and its affiliates offer customers an on-demand experience for selling, buying, renting, or financing with transparency and ease. Zillow Group's affiliates and subsidiaries include Zillow®; Zillow Premier Agent®; Zillow Home Loans™; Zillow Closing Services™; Trulia®; Out East®; StreetEasy®; HotPads®; and ShowingTime+™, which houses ShowingTime®, Bridge Interactive®, and dotloop®. Zillow Home Loans, LLC is an Equal Housing Lender, NMLS #10287 (www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org).

Home-Seller Profits Drop Across U.S. in Third Quarter as Housing Market Boom Eases
Profit Margins on Typical Home Sales Dip Three Points Quarterly Amid Decline in National Median Price; Investment Returns Remain Near Record Levels, But Decrease at Fastest Pace in 11 Years; Median U.S. Home Value Down 3 Percent Quarterly During Peak Selling Season IRVINE, Calif. – Oct. 20, 2022 — ATTOM, a leading curator of real estate data nationwide for land and property data, today released its third-quarter 2022 U.S. Home Sales Report, which shows that profit margins on median-priced single-family home and condo sales across the United States decreased to 54.6 percent as home prices declined for the first time in almost three years. The drop-off in typical profit margins, from 57.6 percent in the second quarter, came as the median national home value went down 3 percent quarterly, to roughly $340,000. "Rapidly-rising mortgage rates have not only resulted in fewer home sales, but have begun to impact home prices as well," said Rick Sharga, executive vice president of market intelligence at ATTOM. "With rates the highest they've been in over 20 years, homebuyers face serious affordability challenges, with monthly payments in some markets up 50 percent year-over-year. It's very likely that home prices will continue to weaken in many markets in the coming months." Typical investment returns for home sellers did remain up from 48.8 percent in the third quarter of 2021 and were still at near-record levels for this century – some 20 points higher than just two years earlier. The national median home price also stayed near its all-time high – more than double where it stood a decade earlier. But the investment-return decline during this year's summertime home-selling season marked the largest quarterly downturn since 2011, when the nation was mired in the aftereffects of the Great Recession that hit in the late 2000s. The third-quarter reversal also represented the first time since 2010 that seller returns went down from a second quarter to a third quarter period. Gross profits also decreased from the second quarter to the third quarter of 2022, dropping 6 percent on the typical single-family home and condo sale across the country to $120,100. That quarterly decrease was the largest since early 2017. The third-quarter profit and price trends emerged amid growing headwinds that threaten to end or significantly cool down the nation's decade-long housing market boom. Average mortgage rates have doubled this year, passing 6 percent for a 30-year fixed-rate loan, while the stock market has slumped and consumer price inflation is at a 40-year high. Foreclosure activity by lenders also has more than doubled over the past year. Those forces have raised home-ownership costs for buyers, cut into resources available for down payments on purchases and eaten into overall household budgets. They also have boosted the supply of homes for sale, putting further downward pressure on prices. Profit margins drop quarterly while still up annually across most of U.S. Typical profit margins – the percent change between median purchase and resale prices – decreased from the second quarter of 2022 to the third quarter of 2022 in 127 (68 percent) of the 186 metropolitan statistical areas around the U.S. with sufficient data to analyze. They declined by at least three percentage points in about half of those metro areas, although returns were still up annually in 145 of them (78 percent). The biggest quarterly decreases in typical profit margins came in the metro areas of Claremont-Lebanon, NH (margin down from 72.8 percent in the second quarter of 2022 to 52.4 percent in the third quarter of 2022); San Francisco, CA (down from 85.1 percent to 65.4 percent); Prescott, AZ (down from 86.3 percent to 70.8 percent); Barnstable, MA (down from 74.5 percent to 59.6 percent) and Trenton, NJ (down from 74.5 percent to 61 percent). Aside from San Francisco, the biggest quarterly profit-margin decreases in metro areas with a population of at least 1 million in the third quarter of 2022 were in Seattle, WA (return down from 87.2 percent to 73.7 percent); San Jose, CA (down from 87.5 percent to 76.7 percent); Raleigh, NC (down from 65.6 percent to 56 percent) and Birmingham, AL (down from 40.5 percent to 31.3 percent). Typical profit margins increased quarterly in just 59 of the 186 metro areas analyzed (32 percent). The biggest quarterly increases were in Macon, GA (margin up from 44.7 percent in the second quarter of 2022 to 82.4 percent in the third quarter of 2022); Rockford, IL (up from 29.9 percent to 41.8 percent); Davenport, IA (up from 29.2 percent to 40 percent); Akron, OH (up from 52.8 percent to 60.3 percent) and Hilo, HI (up from 103.3 percent to 110.9 percent). The largest quarterly increases in profit margins among metro areas with a population of at least 1 million came in Milwaukee, WI (up from 51.4 percent to 54.9 percent); Miami, FL (up from 68 percent to 70.9 percent); Cincinnati, OH (up from 50.6 percent to 53.4 percent); Nashville, TN (up from 56.4 percent to 58.7 percent) and Grand Rapids, MI (up from 73 percent to 75.3 percent). Prices flat or down in half the metro areas around the U.S. Median home prices in the third quarter of 2022 decreased from the prior quarter or stayed the same in 98 (53 percent) of the 186 metro areas with enough data to analyze, although they were still up annually in 180 of those metros (97 percent). Nationally, the median price of $339,815 in the third quarter was down 2.7 percent from $349,266 in the second quarter of 2022, but still up 9.4 percent from $310,500 in the third quarter of last year. "If the Federal Reserve's objective was to slow down the housing market, it has succeeded spectacularly," noted Sharga. "The market has gone from double digit annual home price appreciation to below 3 percent, and declining quarter-over-quarter prices. But the impact of 6 and 7 percent mortgage rates means that many homes are still out of the reach of prospective buyers, even with prices declining slightly." The biggest decreases in median home prices from the second to the third quarter of 2022 were in San Francisco, CA (down 13 percent); Charleston, NC (down 12.8 percent); Crestview-Fort Walton Beach, FL (down 11.3 percent); San Jose, CA (down 8.3 percent) and Naples, FL (down 8.2 percent). Aside from San Francisco and San Jose, the largest quarterly median-price declines in metro areas with a population of at least 1 million in the third quarter of 2022 were in New Orleans, LA (down 7.5 percent); Seattle, WA (down 7.2 percent) and San Diego, CA (down 5.3 percent). The largest increases in median prices from the second to the third quarter of 2022 were in Trenton, NJ (up 14.6 percent); Albany, NY (up 8.7 percent); New York, NY (up 7.5 percent); Wichita, KS (up 7.1 percent) and Philadelphia, PA (up 6.7 percent). Aside from New York and Philadelphia, the biggest quarterly increases in metro areas with a population of at least 1 million in the third quarter of 2022 were in Cleveland, OH (up 4.7 percent); Detroit, MI (up 4.5 percent) and St. Louis, MO (up 4.1 percent). Homeownership tenure up, but remains historically low Homeowners who sold in the third quarter of 2022 had owned their homes an average of 5.98 years. That was up from 5.84 years in the second quarter of 2022, but still down from 6.28 years in the third quarter of 2021. Average tenure decreased from the third quarter of 2021 to the same period this year in 81 percent of metro areas with sufficient data. Nineteen of the 25 longest average tenures among sellers in the third quarter of 2022 were in the Northeast or West regions. They were led by Manchester, NH (8.92 years); Kahului-Wailuku, HI (8.26 years); Claremont-Lebanon, NH (8.22 years); Bridgeport, CT (7.89 years) and Honolulu, HI (7.88 years). The smallest average tenures among third-quarter sellers were in Lakeland, FL (1.32 years); Bremerton, WA (1.88 years); Gainesville, GA (2.48 years); Raleigh, NC (3.24 years) and Portland, ME (3.24 years). Lender-owned foreclosures remain at low point for this century Home sales following foreclosures by banks and other lenders again represented just 1 percent of all U.S. single-family home and condo sales in the third quarter of 2022 – tied for the lowest portion since at least 2000. The latest portion of REO sales was the same as the 1 percent level recorded in the second quarter of 2022 and down from 1.2 percent in the third quarter of last year. REO sales represented only one of every 98 sales in the third quarter of 2022, a rate that was 1/30th of this century's high point of one in three in first quarter of 2009. Among metropolitan statistical areas with sufficient data, those areas where REO sales represented the largest portion of all sales in the third quarter of 2022 included Flint, MI (3 percent, or one in 34 sales); Chicago, IL (2.6 percent); St. Louis, MO (2.5 percent); Syracuse, NY (2.3 percent) and New Haven, CT (2.3 percent). Cash sales remain near eight-year high Nationwide, all-cash purchases accounted for 35.7 percent of all single-family home and condo sales in the third quarter of 2022. The third-quarter-of-2022 number was down slightly from 36 percent in the second quarter of 2022 but still up from 33.9 percent in the third quarter of last year. Among metropolitan areas with sufficient cash-sales data, those where cash sales represented a large share of all transactions in the third quarter of 2022 included Columbus, GA (76.8 percent); Augusta, GA (76.6 percent); Gainesville, GA (68.3 percent); Myrtle Beach, SC (67.3 percent) and Atlanta, GA (61.9 percent). Those where cash sales represented the some of the smallest share of all transactions in the third quarter of 2022 included Lincoln, NE (14.9 percent of all sales); Vallejo, CA (17.6 percent); San Jose, CA (18.8 percent); Kennewick, WA (19.4 percent) and Spokane, WA (20.2 percent). Institutional investment increases slightly Institutional investors nationwide accounted for 6.7 percent, or one of every 15 single-family home purchases in the third quarter of 2022. That was up from 6.4 percent in the second quarter of 2022, but still down from 8.4 percent in the third quarter of 2021. Among states with enough data to analyze, those with the largest percentages of sales to institutional investors in the third quarter of 2022 were Arizona (14.3 percent of all sales), Georgia (12.7 percent), Tennessee (10.7 percent), Nevada (10.6 percent) and North Carolina (10.2 percent). States with the smallest levels of sales to institutional investors in the third quarter of 2022 included Hawaii (1.9 percent of all sales), Rhode Island (2.1 percent), Maine (2.1 percent), New Hampshire (2.3 percent) and Louisiana (2.5 percent). FHA-financed purchases increase after year of declines Nationwide, buyers using Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans comprised 7.9 percent of all single-family home purchases in the third quarter of 2022 (one of every 13). That was up from 6.7 percent in the second quarter of 2022 – the first quarterly gain in a year. But it still remained down from 8.2 percent a year earlier. Among metropolitan statistical areas with sufficient FHA-buyer data, those with the highest levels of FHA buyers in the third quarter of 2022 included Bakersfield, CA (20.8 percent of all sales); Visalia, CA (19.6 percent); Modesto, CA (17.9 percent); Hagerstown, MD (17.3 percent) and Vallejo, CA (16.9 percent). Report methodology The ATTOM U.S. Home Sales Report provides percentages of REO sales and all sales that are sold to institutional investors and cash buyers, at the state and metropolitan statistical area. Data is also available at the county and zip code level, upon request. The data is derived from recorded sales deeds, foreclosure filings and loan data. Statistics for previous quarters are revised when each new report is issued as more deed data becomes available. About ATTOM ATTOM provides premium property data to power products that improve transparency, innovation, efficiency and disruption in a data-driven economy. ATTOM multi-sources property tax, deed, mortgage, foreclosure, environmental risk, natural hazard, and neighborhood data for more than 155 million U.S. residential and commercial properties covering 99 percent of the nation's population. A rigorous data management process involving more than 20 steps validates, standardizes, and enhances the real estate data collected by ATTOM, assigning each property record with a persistent, unique ID — the ATTOM ID. The 30TB ATTOM Data Warehouse fuels innovation in many industries including mortgage, real estate, insurance, marketing, government and more through flexible data delivery solutions that include bulk file licenses, property data APIs, real estate market trends, property reports and more. Also, introducing our newest innovative solution, that offers immediate access and streamlines data management – ATTOM Cloud.

BoomTown Announces Third Annual Give Back Awards, Now Accepting Nominations
Awards highlight members of the real estate community who have made a significant impact through service within their communities in 2022 CHARLESTON, S.C., October 18, 2022 -- BoomTown, the leading cloud-based end-to-end sales, marketing, and back-office platform for real estate professionals, is excited to announce the second annual BoomTown Give Back Awards. Nominations are accepted through Dec. 8, 2022, and the awards will highlight members of the real estate community who have made a significant impact through service within their communities in 2022. The winners will each receive a $1,000 prize, and BoomTown will donate $10 to the The Florida Realtors® Disaster Relief Fund for each nomination. "Real estate professionals are consistently going above and beyond to make a positive impact in their business and community, and we feel privileged to hear their stories, amplify their efforts, and celebrate their dedication for the third consecutive year," said Grier Allen, CEO & President of BoomTown. "We are also excited to 'pay it forward,' and support the work of The Florida Realtors Disaster Relief Fund with every nomination we receive." The BoomTown Give Back Awards include three categories, The Helping Hand Award for those jumping in to aid friends, family, employees, another business or the community, The Walk-The-Talk Award for those making charitable giving a part of their business, and The Creative Changemaker Award for those using their creativity to put an innovative spin on giving back. Nominations close on Dec. 8, 2022, and three winners will be selected by a panel of judges from BoomTownLOVE, the company's service and outreach organization. Nominees and winners will be featured on social media, and receive a $1,000 prize with the option to donate the prize to an organization of each winner's choice. Learn more and submit a nomination here. About BoomTown BoomTown exists to make real estate agents successful. 100,000+ of the industry's top professionals, and 40% of Real Trends Top 250 teams, trust BoomTown to grow their real estate business with easy-to-use technology that creates opportunities and turns them into closings. BoomTown's full suite of capabilities include a customizable real estate website integrated with local MLS data, client success management, a cutting-edge CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system with custom marketing automation, personalized advertising and lead generation services, a mobile app for agents on the go, transaction management, commissions, and accounting. BoomTown's service offerings extend far beyond technology with lead qualification services to contact, qualify, and nurture leads, and dedicated advisors to offer personalized support at every step from onboarding and training to optimizing your business and planning for strategic growth to coaching services from peers who have catapulted their growth with the system. Founded in 2006 and headquartered in Charleston, SC, BoomTown has additional offices in Carlsbad and San Francisco, CA. BoomTown's brands include some of the most trusted solutions in real estate like Brokermint, real estate's leading back-office and transaction management software, and MyAgentFinder. For more about BoomTown visit boomtownroi.com.

Meet a Real Life House Whisperer: Here to Help Struggling Homebuyers in Realtor.com's New Creative Campaign
This hero provides unmatched insight and guidance through his ability to communicate with houses in new :30 and :15 spots created by Erich and Kallman SANTA CLARA, Calif., Oct. 17, 2022 -- In a constantly changing housing market with conflicting advice coming from many sources, it's hard to know who to trust and where to find accurate information. Realtor.com® today introduced a real life house whisperer – here to help homebuyers navigate the tricky process with his uncanny ability to communicate with houses. Born and raised in houses, this hero can solve any home buying conundrum and is a new, trusted voice to help tell Realtor.com®'s brand story. Developed in collaboration with Erich & Kallman, the creative campaign embodies Realtor.com®'s tagline "To Each Their Home" beginning with a four spot TV campaign and continuing online across digital channels. Whenever and wherever a homebuyer is struggling, the helpful house whisperer will be there in heroic fashion, serving as an expert guide and trusted partner to help each one find their perfect home with Realtor.com® tools including the RealEstimateSM valuation data which shows three different home value estimates, the Buying Power tool which shows how much house you can afford, and many hyper-specific filters if your heart is set on a fireplace or you prefer to live on a cul-de-sac. With digital campaign extensions, the traveling house whisperer could show up anywhere he's needed, across the world wide web. While the new campaign is light-hearted, it comes at a time when the housing market is rapidly evolving and becoming increasingly challenging. Mortgage rates are at levels not seen in 20 years and home prices are hovering at all-time highs, adding hundreds of dollars to monthly payments. Home shoppers aren't sure where to turn, especially those looking to purchase their first home. Behind the hero who sweeps in to save the day, there is real value in the advice he provides for struggling homebuyers. Realtor.com® is a real estate marketplace built for everyone that provides useful housing market data, relevant news and tips and advice for homebuyers. "At Realtor.com® our mission is to be a trusted guide for consumers as they navigate the ups and downs of the housing market, something that is more important now than ever before. Real is in our name, and it's something we've always been. We're not trying to push someone toward a home they can't afford, we advocate for each and every homebuyer and help them find a home that is perfect for their family," said Mickey Neuberger, Chief Marketing Officer at Realtor.com®. "The wise house whisperer really embodies our brand voice and how we want home shoppers to think of us – as a trusted source for unbiased information, a guide throughout their journey and yes, even a renegade with a cool hat." A strong and trusted presence, the heroic house whisperer has the uncanny ability to speak to and understand homes on a level no one else can. Armed with his housing market wisdom and the Realtor.com® app, he helps demystify the homebuying process. Eric Kallman, co-founder and Chief Creative Officer at Erich and Kallman said, "The homebuying process can be an emotional roller coaster and homebuyers are dealing with a lot of noise. Realtor.com® is a trusted and reliable source that you can turn to for impartial guidance, but we needed some help from a standout spokesperson in order to illustrate that in a memorable way. The knowledgeable house whisperer is a straight-talking, sage guru who cements Realtor.com® in people's minds as the transparent guide you can trust to give you the real picture of the real estate process." In the first spot, So Many Houses, a family is overwhelmed by the sheer number of homes to choose from. The Realtor.com® house whisperer appears out of nowhere in their living room. He shows the family how to use the Realtor.com® app's detailed filters to narrow down their options to just the ones that work for their family. In the second spot, House Bitten, we learn about the Realtor.com® house whisperer's origin – when he was bitten by a house as a child. Lucky for the family struggling to understand how much home they can afford, the ever-helpful house whisperer shows them the Buying Power tool on Realtor.com® – so their young child no longer has to get a job to help pay for the new house. About Realtor.com® Realtor.com® is an open real estate marketplace built for everyone. Realtor.com® pioneered the world of digital real estate more than 25 years ago. Today, through its website and mobile apps, Realtor.com® is a trusted guide for consumers, empowering more people to find their way home by breaking down barriers, helping them make the right connections, and creating confidence through expert insights and guidance. For professionals, Realtor.com® is a trusted partner for business growth, offering consumer connections and branding solutions that help them succeed in today's on-demand world. Realtor.com® is operated by News Corp [Nasdaq: NWS, NWSA] [ASX: NWS, NWSLV] subsidiary Move, Inc. For more information, visit Realtor.com. About Erich and Kallman Erich and Kallman is an award-winning advertising agency founded by former Crispin Porter Bogusky president Steven Erich and Wieden+Kennedy and TBWA/Chiat Day veteran Eric Kallman. Their creative abilities and focus on speed has brought them partnerships with Disney+, Lucid Motors, iRobot, Dole, Great Wolf Lodge, General Mills, Hershey, Meineke Car Care, Kelly Services and New Belgium Brewing, among others. Erich and Kallman has been named to Ad Age's Agency A-List and Adweek's Fastest Growing Agencies, twice awarded Ad Age's Small Agency of The Year, and has had its work recognized by the Cannes Lions, Clio Awards, Effie Awards, ANA, D&AD, AICP Awards, and David Ogilvy Awards. Learn more at erich-kallman.com.

NAR Integrates CompStak into RPR Platform as Benefit for Commercial Members
WASHINGTON (October 13, 2022) – The National Association of Realtors® and CompStak announced today a partnership to integrate CompStak into the Realtors Property Resource® platform. All NAR commercial members will have access to CompStak Exchange, an analyst-reviewed comp data and analytics platform. Members will also receive exclusive promotional credits that can be used to discover timely comps in their respective markets. The CompStak platform handles millions of data points weekly to create its comprehensive commercial real estate data set. "NAR and RPR® continue to build strategic partnerships and enhance our technology resources to advance the goal of being vital business partners to Realtors® who practice commercial real estate," said Jeff Young, RPR®'s COO and general manager. "Each asset and service we add supports their businesses and adds growth to their bottom line. We are thrilled to partner with CompStak to deliver a unique tool for brokers' toolboxes that provides valuable information for their clients and helps them close more transactions." NAR's commercial members can sign up for CompStak and redeem this benefit by visiting the "Additional Resources" section of any RPR® commercial property page and clicking the CompStak logo, or by visiting compstak.com/realtor. Members who already have a CompStak account can email [email protected] with their names and email addresses associated with the account to receive the benefit. "One of our goals in this collaboration is to provide NAR's commercial members with quick access to accurate and transparent data," said CompStak CEO Michael Mandel. "We are excited about CompStak's integration into RPR®, which will provide Realtors® with a competitive edge and lead to better, faster deals for everyone." Michael Hinton, CCIM, 2022 commercial board president at Miami Association of Realtors® and a senior associate at Apex Capital Realty, has been using CompStak's platform for the past four years and attributes the service with supporting his success. "CompStak has been a great source for detailed leasing and sales information for commercial properties," said Hinton. "The service has certainly helped me win more than a few listings by allowing me to provide quality information to my new clients. Using RPR® and CompStak together will be a huge benefit – both timewise and in cost savings – for me and all NAR commercial members." Realtors® can log in to RPR® at narrpr.com and visit the RPR® blog to review updates on new RPR® product enhancements and related learning. About NAR The National Association of Realtors® is America's largest trade association, representing more than 1.5 million members involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries. About Realtors Property Resource® Realtors Property Resource, LLC® (RPR®), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the National Association of Realtors®, is an exclusive online real estate database created to support the core competence of its members. The parcel-centric database, covering more than 160 million residential and commercial U.S. properties, provides Realtors® with the analytical power to help clients make informed decisions while increasing efficiency in the marketplace. For more information about RPR®, visit http://blog.narrpr.com. About CompStak CompStak is a commercial real estate data and analytics platform leveraging crowdsourced commercial lease and sale transaction data and property information combined with AI driven analytics. CompStak's 30,000 members provide data covering the entire US, and its paying customers include the world's largest real estate investors and lenders like Wells Fargo, Tishman Speyer, AEW, CIM, Moody's and many more. For more information, visit compstak.com.

RICOH360 Tours Accelerates Photographers Virtual Tour Service for Real Estate and Marketing Companies
With the combination of features automated through AI to the highest quality, photographers, and real estate photo marketing companies will complete jobs faster and capture more business. CAMPBELL, Calif., Oct. 05, 2022 -- RICOH360 Tours, a service of RICOH Company Ltd, the only truly complete and affordable 360° virtual tour solution under one global brand, has announced a string of new professional AI generated content for real estate. The latest allows for multi-brand banners at tour level. RICOH360 Tours which has delivered more than 13,000,000 virtual tours to help real estate agents sell and rent $billions in residential and commercial listings is seeking to accelerate the adoption of professional real estate photographers to its virtual tour platform. From the vast amount of visual data accumulated since the launch of the RICOH THETA cameras in 2013, Ricoh's Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology creates rich content that buyers and sellers value most highly as property listing content in the home search process. Research by the National Association of REALTORS® shows increasingly every year that nearly 60% to 70% of buyers and sellers have come to expect virtual tours and floor plans as part of their online home search journey. Mostly on average only 17% of listing on the top real estate websites incorporate a floor plan and 6% a virtual tour. "With professional real estate photographers accessing RICOH360 Tours platform for such offerings as unlimited active tours with unlimited images for one-time fixed pricing, virtual staging, floor plan generation, engaging 360˚ walkthrough videos and 2D photo cropping delivered through powerful patented AI technology," said Director of Data Services Yasuo Nishiyama. "Real estate photographers will complete more jobs in less time and become more profitable doing so." RICOH360 Tours all-in-one marketing solution provides some of the richest contents for property seekers which has proven time after time again the best way to drive sales for both residential and commercial brokerages, and agents. Learn more about RICOH360 Tours here. About RICOH360 Tours RICOH360 Tours is the official virtual tour platform of the RICOH THETA camera. A game changing technology that supports the sales and marketing operations of real estate agents, brokerages, photographers & other industries as a cloud-based software that allows anyone from anywhere to virtually view spaces online without having to visit the site. With a RICOH THETA camera and mobile app, anyone can easily create and publish a virtual tour to a real-estate marketplace or MLS in minutes. There is no limit to the number of virtual tours you can publish and the number of images you can insert in a tour. Furthermore, customers can use AI image enhancement, AI Video Maker, AI Virtual staging beta and Floor Plan Generator, which use Ricoh's original AI technology, and are available for all plans, making it easy to create professional content. About Ricoh Data Service Business Ricoh is the leader in the development of high-quality immersive 360° cameras and platforms for prosumers and professionals to easily capture and share 360° views of physical spaces from a mobile app in minutes. Ricoh creates intuitive solutions that require no professional, technical or photography experience to create immersive digitized photo-realistic views of a physical environment.

Collabra Technology Introduces First Social Listing Videos with Real-Time, Hyper-Local Housing Market Analytics
RElumio Market Spotlight leverages video to build an agent's personal brand and grow their digital sphere of influence SPOKANE, WASH., Oct. 4, 2022 — Collabra Technology, a digital marketing company that helps real estate professionals grow their digital sphere of influence, today launched RElumio™ Market Spotlight™, giving agents the ability to combine their listing with real-time, hyper-local market analytics into a beautiful, attention-grabbing video. RElumio Market Spotlight includes up-to-the-minute, ZIP Code-level market insights with an agent's listing to create a short home presentation video — a first for the industry. Videos utilize Plunk's new analytics platform which tracks and captures housing market performance in real time. With RElumio Market Spotlight, agents can now provide valuable market insights to their digital sphere of influence with just one click – eliminating hours of data gathering and editing. According to the National Association of REALTORS, 73% of homeowners are more likely to list with an agent who uses video, making shareable video one of the best ways to brand, advertise and separate an agent from the competition. "This fast-changing real estate market is an opportunity for agents to build their brand and strengthen their digital sphere of influence," said Russ Cofano, CEO, Collabra Technology. "RElumio Market Spotlight makes the agent the expert, giving them an edge over the competition." "RElumio's Market Spotlight is a breakthrough tool for agents," remarked David Bluhm, co-founder and president of Plunk. "They can now instantly create and share stunning social videos that generate leads while also strengthening their brand as the local market authority. It's an absolute no-brainer." RElumio connects directly with MLSs to create cutting-edge marketing materials to shine a light on an agent's listing and help build their digital brand with listing videos, websites, flyers and market data all in one easy step. About Collabra Technology Collabra Technology delivers smarter content, better data and actionable insights that help real estate professionals grow their sphere of influence. It fosters lifelong client relationships. For more information and to sign up to receive the upcoming free Guide to Digital Sphere Mastery, visit collabratechnology.com. Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

MoveEasy Launches Nation's First Fully Integrated Home Platform, Empowering Real Estate Partners to Deliver Even More Value to Clients
MoveEasy, the real estate industry's leading concierge service provider, today announced the country's first fully integrated, white-labeled home management platform, empowering clients to make smarter decisions and save money throughout their journey as homeowners. COLUMBUS, OHIO - SEPTEMBER 29, 2022 -- MoveEasy, the real estate industry's leading concierge service provider, today announced the country's first fully integrated, white-labeled home management platform, empowering clients to make smarter decisions and save money throughout their journey as homeowners. MoveEasy's platform and app now provides clients with a holistic view of every decision they need to make as homeowners - whether they are buying, selling, moving, or managing their existing home. Homeowners can apply for new loans or refinance through their brokerage's mortgage partners, instantly check their home value, budget for home-related expenses, and see how every home update they make improves their home value and equity over time. For real estate partners, MoveEasy automates the workflow with clients and delivers unprecedented value, leading to stronger engagement, loyalty, and retention. Agents can automate communications, share timely reminders on home-related tasks, while also surfacing insights and exclusive discounts for service providers across categories. "Imagine only needing to use one platform for every home ownership decision," said MoveEasy CEO Venkatesh Ganapathy. "That's the power of MoveEasy. Whether you're remodeling your kitchen, replacing your roof, or upgrading your home to solar, there are a variety of factors you have to consider. MoveEasy empowers real estate agents to act as trusted advisors, surfacing insights and discounts to save clients money regardless of where they are in their journey. This drives a significant increase in client engagement with stronger loyalty and client satisfaction." New platform updates MoveEasy is launching today include: Integrated services for buying, moving, and home management. From getting pre-approved on a loan with a broker's mortgage partner to closing documents and maintenance records, clients can now manage it all through the MoveEasy platform. A new home valuation tool provides homeowners with an instant and accurate snapshot of their home's value, while also allowing them to see how home improvement projects increase their home equity over time. A home equity planning tool provides clients with a holistic view of their current equity. Homeowners can see a snapshot of their pending loan amounts alongside their home equity, as well as options to pre-qualify for a HELOC loan to improve their home. A cost of living and savings tool allows clients to see the estimated mortgage and monthly expenses for when a homeowner is evaluating a new home they want to buy or exploring a vacation home, or investment/rental property. MoveEasy's savings monitoring tool also constantly searches for the best prices on home-related services such as internet, utilities, and insurance, helping clients to save money or avoid overpaying. A complete 360 project planner gives clients new insights into how much a home improvement project such as a kitchen remodel, new HVAC system, or upgrading to solar energy will cost, while also providing them with financing options. Agents can also surface exclusive savings and insights for clients related to any project, as well as timely reminders for related services such as lawn care, updating air filters, renewing subscriptions, and other tasks. "MoveEasy has evolved to become the ultimate consumer engagement platform for all things home," said Ganapathy. "We're empowering real estate brokers and agents to personalize the experience for clients - delivering real value across every decision they need to make as homeowners. Simply put, we're delivering the broadest spectrum of fully integrated home-related services on one platform in the industry, while surfacing insights, exclusive discounts, and features to help clients improve their home value and equity over time." MoveEasy's homeowner dashboard provides clients access to service providers across a growing number of categories including home insurance, internet and cable providers, home protection, energy, utilities, solar, and home improvement. Through direct integration, real estate partners can also embed their preferred network of partners such as mortgage, insurance or home warranty providers, or contractors. All of this builds on what is perhaps MoveEasy's most unique feature: every client is provided with a dedicated human concierge - available via phone, text or email to help with any moving or home management request while fully white labeled for the brand across all platforms. No other company in the industry provides this level of branding and service. MoveEasy continues to build momentum with more than 130,000 real estate agents using the platform, representing millions of homeowners. Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, Century 21, RE/MAX, Howard Hanna and Schmidt Family of Companies are just some of major real estate partners nationwide that use MoveEasy to deliver stellar service to clients, leading to increased engagement, loyalty and referrals. Starting today, all of MoveEasy partners and agents will have access to the home management platform, and can start using it immediately with current and past clients and prospects at no cost. About Move Easy MoveEasy is the industry's first comprehensive home management and concierge platform designed to help the 139M homeowners in the US with all their moving and home management needs. MoveEasy's 360° dashboard provides access to service providers across multiple categories, a built-in savings calculator, a concierge service, and more. For real estate partners, MoveEasy is a fully white-labeled turnkey concierge solution that helps brokers customize and brand the platform to offer a true end-to-end lifetime concierge service for their clients. Today MoveEasy works with real estate brokers across the country representing more than 130,000 agents. For more information, visit http://www.moveeasy.com.

HomeJab real estate photographer survey shares 'Rants and Raves'
Experts sound off on the good, the bad, and the ugly found during listing shoots Cherry Hill, NJ - September 26, 2022 -- HomeJab, which provides real estate agents on-demand professional real estate photography services in all 50 US states, released its first annual "Rants and Raves" survey of professional real estate photographers. HomeJab, which has delivered more than 4,000,000 images to help real estate agents sell and rent more than $35 billion in listings, polled more than 100 professional real estate photographers for its survey. "Research shows time after time that professional real estate photography helps sell homes faster and for more money," said HomeJab founder and CEO Joe Jesuele. "Most of the time (67%), professional real estate photographers work with highly cooperative sellers. But too often, sellers are not as cooperative as they should be and sometimes, surprisingly, they are uncooperative." According to Jesuele, a leading real estate imaging expert, the HomeJab "Rants and Raves" survey uncovered a series of "best practices" for home sellers, shared almost universally by the photo pros. Photographer rants Among the survey findings are the Top 5 things professional real estate photographers wish all sellers did (that most don't do) before a shoot: Declutter – 95% Remove objects in the way of a photo (toys, bikes, hoses, etc.) – 86% Clean the house – 75% Fix light bulbs – 73% Clean pathways and driveways (remove cars) – 54% The survey also discovered "the one thing that sellers forget" that bothers professional real estate photographers: decluttering before the shoot. A common complaint of the photo pros was that many sellers attempted to declutter during the shoot, going room by room at the last minute. "Moving clutter room-to-room like musical chairs disrupts the flow and slows down the process," said a real estate photographer from Lakeland, Florida, adding significant additional time to a shoot. "Many sellers begin prepping after I arrive," observed a photographer from Chicago. "They should know the home should be ready upon arrival." Seller raves The HomeJab survey also asked professional real estate photographers the one thing sellers do that they appreciate most. The consensus: having the house ready when they arrive. A photo pro from Austin notes that having the house "decluttered – neat and tidy" is a huge help. A veteran photographer from Greenwood Village, Colorado, adds, "A place that's ready to go when I arrive – that's awesome." And when asked, "What is the one thing a seller can do to make your job easier?" there was less universal agreement among professional real estate photographers on advice, including whether the seller should stay – or go. While real estate photographers need sellers to stay out of the way of their shoot, some say sellers should leave during the shoot. But other photographers want them within earshot to get permission to make minor adjustments to improve a photo. The HomeJab survey also found some photographers don't want to be interrupted with questions, while others enjoy the banter with a seller. The best approach, according to HomeJab's Jesuele, "Sellers should ask what they can do to make the professional's job easier at the start. The result will be better photos, the professional tells us." Other suggestions that photographers have for sellers to make their job easier: Control your pets Park cars down the street Be ready to provide access when the photographer arrives Advice to real estate agents Many photographers also said they rely on the real estate agent working with the seller to ensure the home is decluttered and clean when they arrive for the shoot. "Good agents will arrive at a property ahead of time and turn on all the lights and clean up anything that shouldn't be there," said a Cherry Hill, New Jersey-based photographer, adding, "Bad agents show up late and demand that everything be cleaned to perfection." Photographers surveyed also shared what they wished every agent told their seller, including these top three recommendations: Photographers cannot retouch photos, remove something (editing instructions are provided by the seller's agent and HomeJab handles the editing) How much time the photographer will need. Photographers can't send the photos directly to the seller. Instead, the seller will get them from their agent. Other things the HomeJab "Rants and Raves" survey found that professional real estate photographers appreciate most: Have all the lights on, fans and TVs off, and blinds or shades open Secure your pets, keep the house clear of other people, and stay out of the way Make sure access for the photographer is easy and available upon arrival "Do not underestimate the photographer," advises one. "We are part of the success of the property's sale." About HomeJab HomeJab is America's leading on-demand professional real estate photography and video service for real estate pros. Lightning-fast high-end visual production offerings also include immersive 3D interactive tours, floor plan creation, affordable virtual staging, turnkey aerial services, and the creation of real-estate-backed NFTs. Its efficient one-stop-shop for real estate listings promotions at HomeJab.com features affordable and customizable shoots to create the most engaging visual content for faster home sales and enrich the listing agent's personal brand. HomeJab is available nationwide and in the US and Canada. Learn more at HomeJab.com.

Home values decline for second month as competition eases
Bouncing mortgage rates hinder buyers stressed about affordability SEATTLE, Sept. 19, 2022 -- Home values slipped for the second consecutive month as mortgage costs continue to sideline buyers, according to Zillow's latest market report1. Affordability is driving market momentum: Low-cost markets remain competitive while prices drop the fastest in both the most expensive markets and those that witnessed the strongest appreciation during the pandemic. In addition to affordability challenges, recent volatility in mortgage rates is making it difficult for many borrowers to qualify for a loan or even plan for their purchase. "Substantial day-to-day and week-to-week rate movements mean that many potential buyers are able to qualify for a loan one week, but not the next, or vice versa," said Skylar Olsen, chief economist at Zillow. "Even buyers able to afford a house at current rates could feel frozen, waiting for mortgage rates to fall dramatically again, like they did from the end of June to mid-July, when rates dropped 50 basis points in just two weeks." As the share of median household income needed to pay monthly mortgage costs now stands beyond the 30% level considered to be a financial burden, uncertainty itself could be holding up a large population of buyers who could otherwise still afford to move forward with a loan. It's likely that this problem will continue until markets stabilize and return to some semblance of normalcy, Olsen said. The U.S. typical home value fell 0.3% from July to August and now stands at $356,054, as measured by the raw2 Zillow Home Value Index. That's the largest monthly decline since 2011 and follows a 0.1% decrease in July. Appreciation has receded since peaking in April, but typical home values are still up 14.1% from a year ago and 43.8% since August 2019, before the pandemic. Typical mortgage payments show an even starker picture of the astronomical growth of expenses for new homeowners over the past three years. The historic rise in home prices over the pandemic combined with this year's spiking mortgage rates have pushed the monthly mortgage payment on a newly-purchased typical home, including insurance and taxes, from $897 in August 2019 to $1,643 – an 83% increase. Reduced competition has homes lingering on the market. Typical time before a listing goes pending is now 16 days3, three days more than in July — a steeper increase than the market usually sees this time of year — and up from an all-time low of six days in April. Inventory ticked up, rising 1% from July. But that's by far the smallest monthly increase since February. A significant decline in the flow of new listings to the market over the past two months indicates that the slight rise in total inventory is the result of homes taking longer to sell, rather than extra selling activity. Mortgage rates hovering around 6% are likely dissuading many owners from selling their current homes and entering the market as buyers. Affordable markets in the Midwest are generally retaining their heat while competition is cooling most rapidly in Western markets, especially those that either cost the most or saw the most extreme appreciation over the pandemic. Home values rose from July to August in 12 of the 50 largest U.S. markets, led by Birmingham (0.9%), Indianapolis (0.5%), Cincinnati (0.4%) and Louisville (0.2%). Those four all have a typical home value well under $300,000. Miami, in the fifth spot, breaks the trend here, but also features the highest rent growth over the past three years by far, which could be stoking demand for purchases. Values fell the furthest month over month in San Francisco (-3.4%), Los Angeles (-3.4%), Sacramento (-3.2%) and Salt Lake City (-2.6%). Listings' time to pending saw similar trends, decreasing since July by one day in Milwaukee and staying steady in St. Louis, Cincinnati, Columbus and Louisville. Markets with the largest increase were Las Vegas by 11 days, Austin (10), Phoenix (8) and Riverside (7). Sellers appear to be coming to grips with the new market paradigm. The share of listings with a price cut rose by just one percentage point since July, compared with much steeper hikes in previous months. Roughly 28% of listings nationally received a price cut — slightly higher than August 2019's rate of 22%. The share of listings with a price cut is highest in Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Austin. Markets with the lowest rates for price cuts are Milwaukee, New York, Hartford and Boston. Rent growth continued to ease in August, with typical rent of $2,090 now 12.3% above that of last August — down from a peak of 17.2% annual growth in February. Annual rent growth is strongest in Miami (21.9%), New York (17.9%), Orlando (17.5%) and San Diego (17.1%). *Table ordered by market size 1 The Zillow Real Estate Market Report is a monthly overview of the national and local real estate markets. The reports are compiled by Zillow Research. For more information, visit www.zillow.com/research. 2 Home value figures in the August 2022 Zillow market report represent the raw version of the Zillow Home Value Index. Zillow Research has chosen to present the raw version during this period of unparalleled volatility. The full series of all ZHVI versions, including geographic cuts down to the ZIP code level, are available for download at https://www.zillow.com/research/data/. 3 Raw median days to pending. A smoothed (3-month moving average) version of this metric appeared in previous market reports. About Zillow Group Zillow Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: Z) and (NASDAQ: ZG) is reimagining real estate to make it easier to unlock life's next chapter. As the most visited real estate website in the United States, Zillow® and its affiliates offer customers an on-demand experience for selling, buying, renting or financing with transparency and ease.

Redfin Reports Nearly One-Third of U.S. Homes Are Bought With Cash, Well Above Pre-Pandemic Levels
For buyers taking out loans, the share of homes purchased using FHA and VA loans are both up slightly from record lows as the market cools down SEATTLE -- Nearly one-third (31.4%) of U.S. home purchases were paid for with all cash in July, according to a new report from Redfin, the technology-powered real estate brokerage. That's near the eight-year high reached in February and up from 27.5% a year earlier. The share of all-cash purchases jumped in early 2021 during the pandemic-driven homebuying frenzy and has remained elevated since then. All-cash purchases are prevalent with today's affluent buyers largely because mortgage rates have doubled from a year ago, reaching 6% in mid-September. Buyers who don't use loans avoid high interest payments that exacerbate home prices, which remain near record highs even as the housing market slows. All-cash purchases jumped in popularity last year because they allowed buyers to stand out among fierce competition: Bidding-war rates reached record highs in early 2021 due to sub-3% mortgage rates and remote work driving homebuyer demand. Remote work has also given more Americans the option to use all cash, as it allowed a record share of homebuyers to relocate, often from expensive to affordable parts of the country. U.S. home values have skyrocketed since the start of the pandemic, which means Americans who sell a home in a pricey place like San Francisco may use equity to pay cash in a more affordable area like Las Vegas. Investors are also contributing to the all-cash boom. Real estate investors bought up a record share of the U.S. housing stock in the fourth quarter of last year, and their share has remained above pre-pandemic levels since then. About three-quarters of investor home purchases are made with cash. All-cash purchases are most prevalent in Long Island, NY and Florida Three of the five metro areas with the highest share of all-cash purchases are in Florida, partly because the state is home to a lot of affluent buyers. But Long Island, NY–which includes the Hamptons–is home to the highest share of cash buyers, with two-thirds (66.5%) of home purchases made in cash in July. Next come West Palm Beach (56.4%), Jacksonville (45.5%), Milwaukee (45.3%) and Fort Lauderdale (43.3%). A trio of expensive West Coast markets have the lowest share of all-cash purchases, partly because high prices make it more challenging to pay in cash: Oakland, CA (15.1%), San Jose, CA (16%) and Seattle (16.7%). Washington, D.C. (17.5%) and Pittsburgh (17.8%) round out the bottom five. FHA loans are somewhat more popular than they were at the height of the market, but less prevalent than before the pandemic Even though all-cash purchases are at an eight-year high, most home purchases use loans. Conventional loans are by far the most common type, followed by Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Veterans Affairs (VA) loans. More than eight in 10 (81.3%) of home sales that used a mortgage in July took out a conventional loan, down slightly from 81.9% a year earlier and down from the record high of 83.8% set in April. Roughly 12% of home sales that used a mortgage in July took out an FHA loan, flat from a year earlier but up from the all-time low of 10.4% in the spring. And 6.8% used a VA loan, up slightly from 6.2% a year earlier but up from the record low of 5.4% in spring 2021. "The spike in interest rates is pricing some buyers out of the market, but it's also helping some buyers get into the market because there's less competition," said Tampa Redfin agent Eric Auciello. "A lot of buyers who were repeatedly outbid earlier this year are having their offers accepted, including those using FHA loans, those with smaller down payments and ones that include inspection and financing contingencies. In 2021, hardly any buyers used FHA loans. The story is completely different now, as low down payments are no longer an automatic deal breaker for sellers." But FHA loans are still much less prevalent than they were pre-pandemic; about 17% of mortgaged purchases used them in 2019. That's partly because even though the market has cooled and FHA buyers are less likely to face competition, homes are still quite expensive: The typical U.S. home that sold in July cost about 8% more than a year earlier. That means a lot of the people who would use an FHA loan–lower-income, first-time homebuyers–are priced out of the market. VA purchases are about as popular as before the pandemic; roughly 7% of mortgaged purchases used them in 2019. Read the full report, including charts, methodology and additional metro-level data, here. About Redfin Redfin is a technology-powered real estate company. We help people find a place to live with brokerage, instant home-buying (iBuying), rentals, lending, title insurance, and renovations services. We sell homes for more money and charge half the fee. We also run the country's #1 real-estate brokerage site. Our home-buying customers see homes first with on-demand tours, and our lending and title services help them close quickly. Customers selling a home can take an instant cash offer from Redfin or have our renovations crew fix up their home to sell for top dollar. Our rentals business empowers millions nationwide to find apartments and houses for rent. Since launching in 2006, we've saved customers more than $1 billion in commissions. We serve more than 100 markets across the U.S. and Canada and employ over 6,000 people.

Homebuyers With Access to Flood-Risk Data Bid on Lower-Risk Homes
Redfin users who viewed homes with severe and/or extreme flood risk prior to a Redfin experiment proceeded to bid on homes with 54% less risk after gaining access to flood-risk data SEATTLE -- Homebuyers who have access to flood-risk information when browsing home listings online are more likely to view and make offers on homes with lower flood risk than those who don't have access, according to a new report from Redfin, the technology-powered real estate brokerage. That's according to a three-month randomized controlled trial involving 17.5 million Redfin.com users, half of which had access to property-level flood-risk scores (treatment group) and half of which did not (control group). Redfin users who viewed homes with an average flood-risk score of 8.5 (severe/extreme risk) prior to the study went on to bid on homes with an average score of 3.9 (moderate risk) after gaining access to flood-risk data—a decrease of 54%. By comparison, users who viewed homes with an average score of 8.5 before the study but did not get access to risk data went on to bid on homes with an average score of 8.5. Redfin only saw this impact on users who had been viewing homes with severe/extreme risk prior to the study, suggesting that flood danger is currently unlikely to change homebuyer decisionmaking unless it's substantial. When users who viewed homes with lower risk (minimal, minor, moderate and/or major) prior to the study gained access to flood-risk scores, there was no statistically significant change in the risk level of homes they proceeded to bid on. "We now have definitive evidence that the risks posed by climate change are affecting where Americans choose to live. Before Redfin's experiment, that was just a hypothesis," said Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather. "Equipping people with flood-risk information helps them make more informed decisions. Some will opt to move out of risky areas altogether, while others will stay put but invest in making their homes more resilient to disaster." Fairweather continued: "As more house hunters become aware of climate risk, homes in endangered areas will likely receive fewer offers, causing home values to fall. At the same time, we may see prices in lower-risk, inland areas rise as more Americans move there to avoid flooding." Flood-Risk Data Also Impacted Which Homes Buyers Viewed Online Giving house hunters access to flood-risk data also impacted their online search behavior. Redfin users who were viewing homes with an average risk score of 9.5 (extreme) prior to the study went on to view homes with an average risk score of 8.5 after gaining access to flood-risk data—a decrease of about 10%. There was no meaningful change in the average risk score of homes viewed by users in the control group who had been viewing extremely risky homes prior to the experiment. The impact increased over time for users who had access to flood-risk data. On average, users who viewed homes with extreme risk before the study were viewing homes with 25% less risk than the control group after nine or more weeks in the experiment, compared with just 7% less risk during week one. "Climate-risk data may start to have an even bigger impact on homebuyer decisions now that the housing market is slowing and tilting more in buyers' favor," said Sebastian Sandoval-Olascoaga, the MIT researcher who co-conducted the experiment. "Today's buyers have more leeway to seek out the home features they really want. For some buyers that might mean considering only turnkey homes, and for others it might mean limiting their search to homes with minimal flood risk." Redfin Users in Cape Coral, FL and Houston Were Most Likely to Click on Flood-Risk Data Redfin also measured how frequently Redfin users in the experiment took the additional step of clicking into a home listing page's "Flood Risk" section, where more information can be found on future risk, FEMA flood zones and disaster insurance. Nationwide, users in the treatment group clicked into the flood-risk section 2.8% of the time. Many users likely didn't feel the need to expand the flood-risk section because they found the preview of the flood-risk data sufficient—one reason the clickthrough rate appears low. In Cape Coral, FL, users in the treatment group clicked into the flood-risk section 8.5% of the time, the highest rate among the 100 most populous U.S. metropolitan areas. Next came Houston (8.1%), Baton Rouge, LA (7.5%), McAllen, TX (7.4%) and New Orleans (7.3%). Three other Florida metros—North Port, Tampa and Jacksonville—were also in the top 10. All of these areas face flood risk, and some have attracted an influx of homebuyers during the pandemic. Tampa, Cape Coral and North Port all consistently rank on Redfin's list of most popular migration destinations—an analysis based on net inflow, or how many more Redfin.com users are looking to move into an area than leave. Top 10 Metros Where Redfin Users Were Most Likely to Click on Flood-Risk Data Alexis Malin, a Redfin buyer's agent in the Jacksonville, FL area, recently worked with a buyer who opted out of purchasing a home due to its high flood-risk rating. "I had a buyer from the Northeast who toured a beachfront home in the Jacksonville area and was close to making an offer, but changed his mind after seeing that the flood-risk rating on Redfin was almost a 10 out of 10," Malin said. "He loved the house and the location, but decided the purchase was just too big of a financial risk. He ended up staying in the Northeast and buying a home there instead." People Have Access to Climate-Risk Data—What Now? Individuals should be aware that if they own or buy a home with high natural-disaster risk, it may require costly disaster insurance and could ultimately drop in value. It's possible this will disproportionately impact disadvantaged communities, which are often more exposed to flooding. Formerly redlined areas have a larger share of homes with high flood risk than areas that weren't redlined, a 2021 Redfin analysis found. While redlining has been outlawed for years, formerly redlined areas are still more likely to house people of color than non-redlined areas. "Home prices haven't yet started to broadly plummet due to natural-disaster risk. That means communities that face the highest risk still have time to act," Fairweather said. "If a homeowner thinks their property will lose value due to flood risk, they may want to relocate now to keep both themself and their finances safe. Unfortunately, that may mean passing on the risk to someone else. Governments can help prevent that by purchasing and demolishing at-risk homes, or subsidizing climate-resilient improvements. Upgrades like landscaping, flood walls and flood openings to direct water away from homes can help an at-risk property retain value." Fairweather continued: "Local and federal leaders should also be using climate-risk data to inform their policy decisions. Lawmakers in lower-risk cities should consider changing zoning laws to allow for denser housing, which would provide more options for people who face flood risk but don't have a place to go." Redfin conducted this experiment from Oct. 12, 2020 to Jan. 3, 2021 in partnership with researchers from University of Southern California, the National Bureau of Economic Research and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Flood-risk scores came from First Street Foundation's Flood Factor. Redfin now publishes climate-risk data (including fire, heat, drought, storm and flood) for nearly every U.S. home, with the exception of rentals. To view the full report, including charts, graphics and methodology, please click here. About Redfin Redfin is a technology-powered real estate company. We help people find a place to live with brokerage, instant home-buying (iBuying), rentals, lending, title insurance, and renovations services. We sell homes for more money and charge half the fee. We also run the country's #1 real-estate brokerage site. Our home-buying customers see homes first with on-demand tours, and our lending and title services help them close quickly. Customers selling a home can take an instant cash offer from Redfin or have our renovations crew fix up their home to sell for top dollar. Our rentals business empowers millions nationwide to find apartments and houses for rent. Since launching in 2006, we've saved customers more than $1 billion in commissions. We serve more than 100 markets across the U.S. and Canada and employ over 6,000 people.

Millennial and Gen Z Renters Have Inflation Rates Above 11%, Compared with 8.5% For the Typical American
Inflation is hitting young renters hard because the cost of rent and other expenses has increased much faster than their incomes SEATTLE -- Millennials who took on a new rental lease in July saw their overall cost of goods and services increase 11.6% year over year, substantially higher than 8.5% for the U.S. population as a whole. The personal inflation rate for Gen Z renters taking on a new lease came nearly as high at 11.3%, according to a new report from Redfin, the technology-powered real estate brokerage. That's largely due to soaring rental costs, with asking rents up 13.5% year over year in July. While rental price increases have slowed after skyrocketing in 2021, asking rents are roughly 25% higher than they were before the pandemic. Millennials and Gen Zers allocate more than one-quarter of their income to housing, the largest chunk of all spending categories. "Inflation is hitting young renters hard because not only have prices of everything from food to fuel soared, but so have rental prices," said Redfin Senior Economist Sheharyar Bokhari. "Homeowners are forking over more money at the grocery store and the gas pump, but at least the number on their mortgage statement isn't going up every month. Combine high rental prices with student loan debt and relatively low incomes, and it's difficult for millennials and Gen Z renters to put money into savings, retirement accounts and down-payment funds to eventually buy a house. They may also have higher interest rates on debt, which cuts further into their potential savings." While inflation has cut into the budgets of most Americans, it's more severe for younger generations. Gen Zers overall have an inflation rate of 9.2% and millennials clock in at 9.6%. That's lower than the 11%-plus rates specifically for members of those generations who rent, but it's higher than 8.5% for the general population. Inflation is also more severe for renters overall, who tend to be young. The price of goods and services rose 9.2% year over year in July for all renters. Less than half (48.5%) of millennials own their home, and while official data isn't available for Gen Zers, the rate is likely significantly lower. That's compared with homeownership rates near 80% for baby boomers and 70% for Gen Xers. Older generations tend to have lower personal inflation rates partly because they're more likely to own their homes and earn money from rising equity rather than spend money on rent. Inflation is particularly difficult for Gen Z adults to grapple with because they typically have relatively low entry-level incomes and don't own many assets—but they're still bearing the brunt of rising costs. Inflation is also having an outsized impact on millennials, as older millennials have been playing financial catch-up since starting their careers during the Great Recession and younger ones are early in their careers with fewer savings and lower incomes. Gen Zers have just 2% of their income left over after paying for housing and other necessities Incomes for both Gen Zers and millennials have increased 9.7% from 2020 to 2022—but expenses rose much more, about 17%. Costs increasing faster than incomes have left young Americans without much disposable income. For the typical Gen Z adult, just 1.9% of their $40,953 median income is left over after accounting for housing payments and other expenses including food and transportation. That's down from 7.7% of their income in 2020. While that technically leaves just a sliver of their income for discretionary spending, many Gen Z adults—which includes those who are college aged—live with their parents and/or receive financial help from them. The typical millennial has about 26% of their income left over after accounting for housing payments and other expenses, down from 30% in 2020. These figures are higher for millennials mostly because they earn more money. The typical millennial income of $85,233 is more than double the typical Gen Z income. If the typical Gen Zer saved all of their disposable income, they would have just $766 at the end of the year. Millennials would have $21,959. At that rate, it would take millennials four years to save enough for a 20% down payment for the median-priced U.S. home ($413,000). It would theoretically take Gen Zers more than 100 years to save at that rate, but that figure isn't realistic because we expect the youngest workers' incomes to grow as they age. Four in 10 (39%) recent or current first-time homebuyers didn't buy a home sooner because of the high cost of rent, according to an August Redfin survey. The high cost of rent was the most commonly cited obstacle, ahead of other obstacles including debt and pandemic-related financial setbacks. Nearly 80% of the respondents to this question were millennials or Gen Zers. "The combination of expensive housing, high inflation and relatively low incomes have forced many young renters to save money in creative ways," Bokhari said. "Some are living with their parents or roommates longer than they would like, and others are moving to more affordable areas." Young renters in Seattle, Miami and New York are hit hardest by inflation Seattle Gen Zers who signed a new lease in June—the most recent month for which data is available—saw prices of goods and services rise 17.1%, the highest inflation rate of the 21 metros in this analysis and substantially higher than the 10.1% overall June Seattle inflation rate. The metros included in this analysis are ones for which metro-level inflation data is available. Next comes Miami, where members of Gen Z signing a new lease in June had an inflation rate of 14.2%, compared with 10.6% for the metro overall. Rounding out the top three is New York, where Gen Zers taking on a new lease in July have an inflation rate of 12.8%, nearly double the metro's overall rate of 6.5%. The list is the same for millennials, with those signing a new lease in Seattle experiencing 16.8% inflation, followed by 14% in Miami and 12.6% in New York. That's partly due to quickly increasing rental costs in those three coastal metros. Seattle and New York are both among the 10 metros with the fastest-rising rents in July, with the typical asking rents increasing 22% year over year to $3,157 in Seattle and 23% to $4,209 in New York. Miami asking rents rose 18% to $3,068. To read the full report, including a chart, metro-level table, and methodology, click here. About Redfin Redfin is a technology-powered real estate company. We help people find a place to live with brokerage, instant home-buying (iBuying), rentals, lending, title insurance, and renovations services. We sell homes for more money and charge half the fee. We also run the country's #1 real-estate brokerage site. Our home-buying customers see homes first with on-demand tours, and our lending and title services help them close quickly. Customers selling a home can take an instant cash offer from Redfin or have our renovations crew fix up their home to sell for top dollar. Our rentals business empowers millions nationwide to find apartments and houses for rent. Since launching in 2006, we've saved customers more than $1 billion in commissions. We serve more than 100 markets across the U.S. and Canada and employ over 6,000 people.

National Association of Realtors Honors 2022 Good Neighbor Awards Finalists
WASHINGTON (September 1, 2022) -- The National Association of Realtors has selected 10 Realtors as finalists for its 2022 Good Neighbor Awards, which honor NAR members who make an extraordinary difference in their communities through volunteer work. This is the 23rd year the Good Neighbor Awards program has recognized Realtor volunteers who donate time, money and passion to enrich the lives of people in their communities. "This year's Good Neighbor finalists have gone above and beyond to help build stronger communities and improve the lives of people across this country," said NAR President Leslie Rouda Smith, a Realtor® from Plano, Texas, and a broker associate at Dave Perry-Miller Real Estate in Dallas. "Their determination and selfless commitment embody everything that we strive for as Realtors® and as compassionate members of our community. I'm proud of this group for devoting hundreds of hours of their personal time to these important causes." Five winners will receive a $10,000 grant and national media exposure for their charity, including a feature in the fall issue of REALTOR® Magazine. The winners will also be honored in November during NAR NXT, The REALTOR® Experience, in Orlando, Florida. Five honorable mentions will receive $2,500 grants. Beginning today, the public can vote for their favorite of the 10 Good Neighbor finalists. The top three vote-getters will be recognized as Web Choice Favorites, with the winner taking home $2,500, and the second and third place finishers each receiving $1,250, funded by Realtor.com®. Cast your vote at realtor.com/goodneighbor between September 1 and October 3. Both the winners, as determined by judges, and the Web Choice Favorites will be announced on October 6. The 10 NAR Good Neighbor Awards finalists are as follows: Jennifer Barnes, Keller Williams Realty Peachtree Road, Brookhaven, Georgia In 2020, Jennifer Barnes thought she would feed people for just a few weeks until the COVID-19-induced shutdowns ended. That experience opened her eyes to an underlying vulnerability in her affluent Atlanta-area neighborhood that extended well beyond food. The nonprofit she founded, Solidarity Sandy Springs, inspires more than 2,600 volunteers to provide wide-ranging community services for thousands of families, including free eye exams and glasses, flu vaccines, job fairs, back-to-school backpacks, and more. Barnes has also distributed nearly one million pounds of food to about 46,000 shoppers. nar.realtor/gna/jennifer-barnes Dennis Curtin, Legacy Investments, Kansas City, Missouri Dennis Curtin founded Mimi's Pantry to offer a more positive food pantry experience to people in need. The state-of-the-art, 6,000-square-foot facility welcomes shoppers to browse the aisles and choose their food, just as they would in a grocery store. The nonprofit invested in commercial refrigeration equipment and offers fresh meat, produce and milk. It also has a play area and library for kids and is building a greenhouse, an orchard of fruit trees and berry bushes this fall. In three years, it has served 50,000 individuals. nar.realtor/gna/dennis-curtin Jim Edmonds, Emerald Isle Properties, Kilauea, Hawaii As the Hawaiian island of Kauai may at any time have only a handful of homes for sale under $1 million, Permanently Affordable Living (PAL) Kaua'i founder Jim Edmonds partners with nonprofits to build and convert affordable housing for service and farm workers within walking distance to their workplaces. Edmonds navigates the complex challenges of poor infrastructure and resource scarcity through innovative, cost-saving solutions like solar energy, edible landscaping, shared electric vehicles, and shared bicycles. nar.realtor/gna/jim-edmonds Heather Griesser LaPierre, RE/MAX Preferred Newtown Square, Newtown Square, Pennsylvania To address food insecurity in her neighborhood and around the world, Heather Griesser LaPierre founded Kids Against Hunger Philadelphia. She rallies hundreds of volunteers each month to pack nutritious, ready-to-make pasta- and rice-based meals, involving local entities like churches, scout troops and police officers. In 2021, she decided to double production to 350,000 meals a month in order to ensure children who depended on school lunches were fed. This effort was even more impressive considering COVID-19 restrictions had forced her to manage with a fraction of the normal volunteer force. nar.realtor/gna/heather-griesser-lapierre Tamara "Tami" Hicks, Century 21 Signature Real Estate, Ames, Iowa As a Realtor®, Tami Hicks would see sellers throw out perfectly good furniture that they didn't need because they didn't know what to do with it. Hicks gathered a few friends and co-founded Overflow Thrift Store, a nonprofit that recycles and resells home furnishings and clothing. Now boasting two locations, the thrift stores' proceeds are distributed monthly to 10 nonprofit organizations. It also partners with eight additional community agencies to provide clients with free shopping vouchers for furniture and housewares. Since 2014, Overflow Thrift Store has resold more than 1 million items, recycled 325 tons of clothing that otherwise may have gone into landfills and donated $512,000 to nonprofit organizations. nar.realtor/gna/tami-hicks Lisa Hoeve, Coldwell Banker Woodland Schmidt, Holland, Michigan As a foster parent herself, Lisa Hoeve understands the stressful circumstances that arise when a child is placed in a new home, often with strangers, on short notice and carrying none of their own belongings. Hoeve created Hope Pkgs to ease the transition for the children and to support the foster parents striving to ensure these children are as comfortable as possible. She works through child service agencies in Michigan to provide "First Night Bags" with gender- and age-appropriate new pajamas, socks, underwear, blankets, toiletries and stuffed animals. Since 2015, she has served more than 4,200 children. nar.realtor/gna/lisa-hoeve Debbie McCabe, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Fox & Roach, REALTORS®, and the Trident Group, Devon, Pennsylvania Most of us don't know what it feels like to sleep on the streets in the winter, but Debbie McCabe does. Each year, she leads a team of people who voluntarily sleep in cardboard boxes to raise money to help youth experiencing homelessness. For more than 10 years, McCabe has been a volunteer leader for the 76-bed Covenant House Pennsylvania. The transitional housing and services it provides build a bridge to hope for young people overcoming homelessness and who have been a victim of human trafficking. McCabe helped the facility safely keep its doors open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at the height of the pandemic. nar.realtor/gna/debbie-mccabe Debbie Miller, Webpro Realty, Lakeland, Florida Debbie Miller had been a devoted volunteer for KidsPACK for many years, helping provide weekend food to kids who might not otherwise have had enough to eat. When COVID-19 hit and demand spiked, the organization found that vendors could no longer supply the bulk food it needed. As inventory dwindled, Miller took to social media, starting a Facebook page and convincing hundreds of new people to donate Chef Boyardee provisions using Amazon. The organization was able to support 140 new children from this effort alone. Today, it feeds 3,000 kids from 80 area schools on weekends. nar.realtor/gna/debbie-miller Kathy Opperman, Long & Foster Collegeville, Collegeville, Pennsylvania Kathy Opperman knows a little support can make all the difference when managing grief or loss. She founded Pillars of Light and Love, which offers a multitude of programs and support groups including grief support, help with anxiety, healthy coping skills training, anti-bullying and self-confidence building, and several youth empowerment programs. They have offered over 800 free workshops and support groups. Their mission is to build confidence, self-esteem and resilience so adults and youth can overcome the stresses of life. nar.realtor/gna/kathy-opperman MaliVai Washington, Diamond Life Real Estate, Jacksonville Beach, Florida For 26 years, MaliVai Washington Youth Foundation founder Mal Washington has been breaking the cycle of poverty through a vibrant after-school mentoring program. Originally rooted in his beloved sport of tennis, MWYF now serves 500 kids annually through a comprehensive youth development program of academic tutoring, leadership skills, financial training and fitness. He is proud of the 100% high school graduation rate within the program as the surrounding neighborhood's dropout rate is 20%. nar.realtor/gna/malivai-washington NAR's Good Neighbor Awards is supported by primary sponsor Realtor.com® as well as the Center for REALTOR® Development. "The Good Neighbor Award finalists are a remarkable group of individuals," said Realtor.com® CMO Mickey Neuberger. "Their work shows that volunteers are truly improving our communities and making them a better place, and Realtor.com is so pleased to be able to recognize them for their efforts." Nominees were judged on their personal contribution of time as well as financial and material contributions to benefit their cause. Realtor.com® is an open real estate marketplace built for everyone. Realtor.com®(link is external) pioneered the world of digital real estate more than 25 years ago. Today, through its website and mobile apps, Realtor.com® is a trusted guide for consumers, empowering more people to find their way home by breaking down barriers, helping them make the right connections, and creating confidence through expert insights and guidance. For professionals, Realtor.com® is a trusted partner for empowered growth, offering consumer connections and branding solutions that help them succeed in today's on-demand world. Realtor.com® is operated by News Corp [Nasdaq: NWS, NWSA] [ASX: NWS, NWSLV] subsidiary Move, Inc. For more information, visit Realtor.com. The Center for REALTOR®Development (CRD) is a wholly owned subsidiary of NAR, and the home of high-quality education. With 10+ credentials, learning pathways, over 100 microcourses, and an award-winning podcast, there is a learning experience for every real estate professional. Sharpen your skills and boost your business by investing in yourself. Get started at crd.realtor. The National Association of Realtors® is America's largest trade association, representing more than 1.5 million members involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries.

Bargaining Power is Back; 92% of Recent Sellers Accepted Buyer-Friendly Terms
Home sellers are once again making repairs and accepting contingencies as we move toward a more balanced housing market SANTA CLARA, Calif., Aug. 30, 2022 -- The days of frenzied sales with waived inspections might be behind us, as buyers regain a bit of bargaining power. According to a new Realtor.com® survey, 92% of people who sold their home within the last year accepted some buyer-friendly terms and 41% accepted some contingencies in the contract. Additionally, among those surveyed, the number of buyers asking for repairs based on the inspection results more than doubled in recent months and the number of sellers refusing to make repairs dropped to zero. Whether it be financing, timing, repairs or flexibility, the art of negotiation is returning to the housing market. Realtor.com® surveyed 449 people who sold their home within the last 12 months. To highlight the shifting market, responses were collected based on how long ago the home sold. "Our survey shows that the overheated housing market of the past two years, which predominantly favored sellers, is beginning to regain a sense of normalcy, which is welcome news for home buyers," said George Ratiu, manager of economic research, Realtor.com®. "The combination of higher mortgage rates and prices have noticeably cooled demand over the first half of the year. In addition, as more homeowners have been listing their properties, rising inventory is motivating more of them to resort to price cuts in order to successfully close transactions. At the same time, even as we are seeing a shift toward a more buyer-friendly market, it's worth noting that the majority of recent sellers are still satisfied with the outcome of their home sale." Room for negotiation Despite the extremely competitive housing market of the past several years, the survey suggests that negotiation is back on the table – for both price and contract terms. Homes that sold at- or above-asking price peaked at 82% in Feb. and March of 2022 when mortgage rates were below 4% and dropped to 69% for homes that sold within the last month when rates hovered near 6%. By contrast, the share of sellers who sold below-asking jumped from 18% in Feb. and March 2022 to 31% for those sold within the last month. Additionally, 92% of all recent sellers accepted some buyer-friendly terms. Those included: 41% Accepted some contingencies in the contract (appraisal, home inspection, home sale, financing, etc.) 32% Dropped the price because the home didn't meet appraisal 32% Paid for some or all of the buyer's closing costs 30% Had to be flexible on the ideal timeline for closing 29% Paid for repairs to the home after the appraisal 28% Were not able to rent the home back after close despite asking to Inspections and repairs make a comeback A professional home inspection is always a good idea for homebuyers, but during the housing market's peak, many buyers waived this important step in order to be competitive with their offer. Of those who sold within the last month, 95% reported that the buyer requested a home inspection, up from 82% of those who sold 6-12 months ago. More than twice as many buyers of homes that sold in the last month asked for repairs as a result of the home inspection (67%) compared to homes that sold 6-12 months ago (31%). The number of surveyed sellers who refused to pay for any repairs during that time dropped from 8% to zero. Nearly all respondents (95%) who sold their home in the last month made some updates or repairs to the property prior to listing, compared to 71% who sold 6-12 months ago. The average amount that recent sellers spent on repairs prior to listing was $14,163. Not all bad news for sellers Despite the shifting market, homes are continuing to sell quickly. In fact, 22% of people who sold within the past month said that their home went under contract in less than a week. This is up from 14% of people who sold 6-12 months ago. Additionally, 92% of people who sold their home in the past month were satisfied with the overall outcome of their home sale, down slightly from the 98% who were satisfied 6-12 months ago. Nearly half (46%) of sellers in the last month were satisfied with the price of their home sale, compared to 72% of those who sold 6-12 months ago. Changing needs motivate sellers After two years of the pandemic, sellers' needs have changed, prompting a search for another home. Of those who sold within the last year: 31% were looking for different amenities/features 29% found that the home no longer met the needs of their families 26% needed a home office for remote work 23% wanted to live closer to family and friends 20% felt they bought their home in a hurry/panic and decided it was not the right home for them 17% no longer needed to live near an office Methodology This survey was conducted online within the United States from Aug. 9-12 among 3,001 adults, of which 449 had sold their home in the last 12 months. The sampling margin of error of this poll is plus or minus 1.8 percentage points. The results reflect a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults. Results were weighted for age by gender, region, race/ethnicity, and income where necessary to align them with their actual proportions in the population. About Realtor.com® Realtor.com® is an open real estate marketplace built for everyone. Realtor.com® pioneered the world of digital real estate more than 25 years ago. Today, through its website and mobile apps, Realtor.com® is a trusted guide for consumers, empowering more people to find their way home by breaking down barriers, helping them make the right connections, and creating confidence through expert insights and guidance. For professionals, Realtor.com® is a trusted partner for business growth, offering consumer connections and branding solutions that help them succeed in today's on-demand world. Realtor.com® is operated by News Corp [Nasdaq: NWS, NWSA] [ASX: NWS, NWSLV] subsidiary Move, Inc. For more information, visit Realtor.com®.

Former NAR REACH Executive Director Kia Nejatian Joins Revive Real Estate
Leading Real Estate Venture Capital exec becomes Head of Corporate Development IRVINE, Calif. - August 23, 2022 -- Revive Real Estate, the most complete presale home renovation solution for sellers and cash-backed offer programs for buyers, announces leading real estate venture capital executive Kia Nejatian as its new Head of Corporate Development. He will join the Revive executive leadership team on September 6, 2022. Most recently, Nejatian was the Executive Director of the National Association of Realtors' REACH accelerator program for US real estate startups. He also was a venture capitalist at Second Century Ventures, the strategic investment arm of the NAR, focusing on real estate investments. Revive was among eight residential real estate technology startups selected for the US 2022 NAR REACH program earlier this year. "Kia joining Revive Real Estate rockets our visibility in the PropTech space and puts us on a trajectory that will drive higher revenue and smarter market expansion," said Michael Alladawi, Revive Real Estate CEO and founder. "Leading our business expansion efforts while helping us go deeper with current partners, Kia has the unique skillset to make an immediate impact for Revive. We are excited to have his energy and drive to help take us to an even higher level of success," he added. Before his roles at NAR REACH and Second Century Ventures, Nejatian led real estate and construction investments at Plug and Play Ventures. He also was Director of Partnerships at Kash, a mobile payment startup purchased by a publicly traded financial services company. Previously, he was a Real Estate Analyst at Real Facilities, acquired by Savills Studley, and an Advisor to Toronto Mayor Rob Ford. "The real estate market today is shifting rapidly, and there will be winners and losers," said Kia Nejatian. "Revive shows it does incredibly well in a seller's market, but wait until you see how extraordinary it becomes for agents and sellers in a buyer's market. I'm excited to share the massive value Revive can deliver to sellers and their agents," he added. According to Revive cofounder Dalip Jaggi, adding Nejatian to Revive Real Estate's executive team validates the tremendous growth ahead for the entire Listings Concierge category. "As the demand of our product grows, Kia's involvement will be essential to integrate with the right strategic partners to deliver our mission to help homeowners maximize their biggest asset– their home," Jaggi said. Revive offers presale renovation services for homeowners to help maximize their profits from their home sales. When homeowners renovate their homes before selling, they maximize their return on their most significant asset — their home. Revive research shows that sellers leave 15 to 20 percent of potential profits on the table when they sell their homes "as is." Revive sellers average $186,000 more than the renovation costs and substantially more in higher-cost markets, and once Revive homes are listed, they sell faster. Learn more at www.revive.realestate. About Revive Revive's mission is to guide home sellers through presale renovations without upfront costs. By providing access to Revive's network of top contractors, home sellers gain an average of $186,000 in additional profit when selling their homes. Revive homes sell for more and help sellers move ahead by maximizing their sales value. Learn more at www.revive.realestate.

Four in Five Metro Areas Notched Double-Digit Price Gains in Second Quarter of 2022
Eighty percent of metro markets, 148 of 185, saw double-digit annual price appreciation in median single-family existing-home sales prices (70% in the previous quarter). WASHINGTON (August 11, 2022) -- Despite escalating mortgage rates and slumping home sales in the second quarter of 2022, a greater number of markets experienced double-digit annual price gains compared to the prior quarter, according to the National Association of REALTORS' latest quarterly report. Eighty percent of the 185 tracked metro areas posted double-digit price gains, up from 70% in the first quarter of this year. Nationally, the median single-family existing-home price eclipsed $400,000 for the first time, rising 14.2% from one year ago to $413,500. Year-over-year price appreciation eased slightly compared to the previous quarter's 15.4%. "Home prices have increased at a pace that far exceeds wage gains, especially for low- and middle-income workers," said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. "Overall, the national price deceleration inevitably followed the softening sales, providing well-positioned prospective buyers a small measure of welcomed relief. The recent dips in mortgage rates will bring additional buyers to market, especially in those places where home prices are still relatively affordable and where jobs are being added." Regionally, the South accounted for 44% of single-family existing-home sales in the second quarter and posted the largest price appreciation of 18.2%. Prices increased 12.7% in the West, 10.1% in the Northeast, and 9.7% in the Midwest. The top 10 metro areas with the largest year-over-year price gains all recorded increases greater than 25%, with seven of those markets located in Florida. Those include Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, Ark.-Mo. (31.9%); Lakeland-Winter Haven, Fla. (31.4%); Naples-Immokalee-Marco Island, Fla. (28.9%); North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, Fla. (28.8%); Myrtle Beach-Conway-North Myrtle Beach, S.C.-N.C. (28.5%); Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Fla. (28.0%); Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla. (27.8%); Punta Gorda, Fla. (27.4%); Ocala, Fla. (26.7%); and Ogden-Clearfield, Utah (25.5%). The top 10 most expensive markets in the U.S., half of which were in California, included San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Calif. ($1,900,000; 11.8%); San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, Calif. ($1,550,000; 11.9%); Anaheim-Santa Ana-Irvine, Calif. ($1,300,000; 17.2%); Urban Honolulu, Hawaii ($1,145,000; 17.3%); San Diego-Carlsbad, Calif. ($965,900; 13.6%); Boulder, Colo. ($933,400; 11.8%); Naples-Immokalee-Marco Island, Fla. ($850,000; 28.9%); Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale, Calif. ($825,700; 9.2%); Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Wash. ($818,900; 14.4%); and Boston-Cambridge-Newton, Mass.-N.H. ($722,200; 8.9%). "The local job market performance and supply availability are the clear distinguishing factors driving local home price growth," Yun added. "Job growth is positive and should be applauded, but supply restraints are creating unnecessary barriers to ownership opportunities." Housing affordability dramatically tumbled in the second quarter of 2022, driven by sharply rising mortgage rates and climbing home prices. The monthly mortgage payment on a typical existing single-family home with a 20% down payment jumped to $1,841. That's an increase of $444 – or 32% – from the first quarter of this year and $612 – or 50% – from one year ago. Families typically spent 24.3% of their income on mortgage payments, up from 18.7% the prior quarter and 16.9% one year ago. Growing unaffordability impacted first-time buyers looking to purchase a typical home during the second quarter of 2022. For a typical starter home valued at $351,500 with a 10% down payment loan, the mortgage payment rose to $1,810 – a bounce of $433 (or 31%) from the prior quarter and $597 (or 49%) from one year ago. First-time buyers typically spent 36.8% of their family income on mortgage payments, up from 28.7% in the previous quarter. A mortgage is considered unaffordable if the monthly payment (principal and interest) amounts to over 25% of the family's income. A family needed at least $100,000 to afford a 10% down payment mortgage in 53 markets, nearly double the 27 markets from the prior quarter. Yet, a family needed less than $50,000 to afford a home in 23 markets, down significantly from 63 markets in the previous quarter. The National Association of REALTORS® is America's largest trade association, representing more than 1.5 million members involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries.