RealTrends Advisor and Industry Stalwart Steve Murray takes a forward look at the housing market from 2022 to 2024, offers his input on the recent litigation noise and gives brokers some insight into this year’s rankings.
Here is a small preview of today’s interview. The transcript below has been lightly edited for length and clarity:
The future of the housing market: We’re still creating as many households as we’re building housing, both multifamily and single family. The problem is that we’re looking at a 4- to 5-million housing deficit from the 2010 to 2020 period. That is, there were four to five million households formed, more than there were houses built for them. We’re seeing the implications of that in today’s market. However, while we think this is overheated, remember that in 2020 existing home sales were up 5.6%. That’s not earth shattering.
Litigation: Consumers are very aware that commissions are negotiable and frequently consumers negotiate to reduce their commission costs in a transaction. Consumer data and the housing market proves that. The next key point is that many of these lawsuits seem to put forth the argument that, if buyers didn’t have to pay as much commission, a seller would reduce their price. Is that true?
Top brokerage company insights: The RealTrends 500 (RT500), from 2010 to 2020, doubled the number of agents at their brokerage firms. That’s an increase of 100% over 10 years, while the Realtor membership count grew at about 38%. So, the RT500 picked up significant market share among the number of agents that are working for a RT500 firm. Interestingly enough, the number of transactions done by the RT500 firms was slightly more than double by about six points.
RealTrending features Steve Murray, founder and partner with RTC Consulting and a senior advisor to HousingWire. He offers insight and analysis on three trending real estate issues. Steve’s 30+ years in the industry allows him to give you a deeper understanding of today’s real estate business happenings. Hosted by Steve Murray and produced by Victoria Wickham.