The Zelman Buzz

According to preliminary estimates released by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), national births declined 1.7% in 2018 from 2017. This marks the tenth decline out of the last 11 years, leaving births 12% lower than their ...

With more than 180 million unique monthly users of Zillow’s website or mobile app, the brand is clearly a dominant force with consumers. While it has historically monetized this audience indirectly through advertising sold to real estate professionals, ...

Last week, Fannie Mae released the results of its monthly Home Purchase Sentiment Index, which is “designed to track consumers’ housing-related attitudes, intentions and perceptions.” As a research firm, we always find value in surveys, assuming ...

For 1Q19, the Census Bureau’s Housing Vacancy and Homeownership Survey (HVS) estimated the national homeownership rate at 64.2%, unchanged from 1Q18. This is the first time out of the last eight quarters that homeownership did not increase ...

In recent years, iBuyers have gained notable attention and become a widespread topic of debate. Effectively the new-age version of “We Buy Ugly Houses”, which has been around since 1989, iBuyers charge sellers 7-10% of their home value in exchange ...

Every month, we track interest in built-to-rent construction, along with other acquisition channels, in our proprietary survey of single-family rental operators. Over the last year, interest in partnering with homebuilders on built-to-rent ...

In 2018, the national unemployment rate averaged 3.9%, the first year below 4.0% since 1969, which has been a positive for wage growth and potential entry-level homebuyers. However, the other side of that coin has been a shortage of labor in ...

According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), personal consumption expenditures totaled $13.9 trillion in 2018, up 4.7% year over year versus a 5.0% increase in disposable income, which was aided by wage growth and tax reform. The BEA ...

Approximately 34% of young adults are living in their parents’ home, more than at any point over the last 50-plus years, which has remarkable consequences for housing demand. While this fact is well understood and has spawned many questions ...

In February, we analyzed state-to-state migration patterns of 25-29 year old households – the heart of the Millennial generation – showing that the catalyst to bring a young adult to a state often differs from ...