Following a year of historic high mortgage rates and rock-bottom inventory levels, green shoots of recovery are in the forecast for the spring homebuying season.
Here are three predictions for real estate agents looking to harvest this spring’s rich bounty of home selling opportunities.
More homes listed. While a majority of mortgage holders (80 percent) are paying less than 5 percent interest on their home loan, Zillow economists predict more sellers will get back into the listing game as they acclimate to the reality of today’s higher interest rates. New listings were up 21 percent YoY in February, and strong early evidence indicates that we’ll have more homes for sale this year.
Homes will remain expensive in 2024, Zillow Chief Economist Skylar Olsen says, though you’re likely to have more to choose from as sellers adjust to higher mortgage interest rates and list their homes in greater numbers.
If inflation, which drove interest rates higher in 2023, continues to drop and meets the Federal Reserve’s target, Zillow expects mortgage rates to stabilize. This, combined with continued wage growth and stable home values, may provide some relief for the spring home shopper concerned with affordability.
Pro tip: Listing Showcase can help distinguish your listings and set your brand apart from the competition with an elevated listing experience. In fact, active Showcase listings on Zillow drive, on average, 75 percent more page views, 68 percent more saves and 75 percent more shares than similar, nearby non-Showcase listings on Zillow.
Single-family rentals as starter homes. Zillow also predicts single-family home rentals to become a more popular choice as the new starter home. A Zillow survey found that 39 percent of recent home buyers say it’s very or extremely important that they can rent out all or part of their home for extra income while living in it. Millennials (55 percent) and Gen Z (51 percent) homebuyers skew even higher.
Pro tip: Agents can help turn would-be renters into buyers by pointing out the advantages of a purchase, especially for homeowners planning to stay in the home for at least five years. Zillow offers a free online calculator to help renters see the “breakeven horizon” before the purchase cost wins over the cost of renting.
Additionally, Listing Media Services can help highlight investment properties with separate living quarters suitable for renting by offering media packages featuring high-resolution photography, downloadable and interactive floor plans, amenity images and more.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) enhancing the home search. According to Zillow, 2024 may be the year we see home buyers, sellers and agents embracing more AI in the home shopping and transaction experience. Zillow experts expect an increase in the use of AI tools, such as natural language search to find homes on Zillow.
Pro tip: Agents who are looking to set themselves apart from the increased competition this spring may welcome Showcase’s AI-powered listings with scrolling, high-resolution imagery, photography grouped room by room, and virtual tours and interactive floor plans that give buyers a deeper sense of the home’s flow.
Showcase listings, the only type of listing available on the new Zillow Immerse℠ app on Apple Vision Pro™, offer a buzzworthy, cutting-edge listing experience that allows spring shoppers to tour these for-sale homes on Zillow in full lifelike detail, turning any space, anywhere into a panoramic, interactive gallery of your listings.