Real estate trends for 2016

Now that we are into the new year with new developments, let’s take out the crystal ball and predict real estate trends for the remainder of 2016.

Here are a few from our perspective as a company that empowers brokers and agents with custom WordPress websites and the ability to display massive amounts of local data.

First of all, what are the experts saying about home sales for this year?

As usual, there are plenty of pundits out there taking wild guesses.

But here’s one group whose livelihood absolutely depends on homes sales – the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Their economists regularly issue home finance forecasts and here are their predicted real estate trends for 2016.

Let’s start with interest rates, which have been incredibly attractive (who remembers the horrid days of 9% interest rates for mortgages).

Sure, now that the Federal Reserve in raising rates, the MBA includes increased rates in their forecast.

Here is their outlook for 30-Yead Fixed Rate Mortgage rates by quarter for this year. (By the way, in Q1 of 2015, rates were 3.7%)

2016 30-Year Fixed Rate Mortgage forecast:

Q1 – 4.2%

Q2 – 4.4%

Q3 – 4.6%

Q4 – 4.8%

This particular real estate trend for 2016 is actually favorable news for brokers and agents.

For one, interest rates will still be incredible low. Okay, we’ll say it, awesomely low. Opening day of StarWars-like magnificently low.

Therefore, people should still be buying homes. To own their own property. To have a solid property investment strategy compared to renting.

Secondly, here’s the silver lining in this cloud. Now that mortgage interest rates will be moving up, home buyers sitting on the fence better be moving quickly to lock in those still attractive rates.

Who knows what the real estate trends will be for 2017? In a year or two , we could be at much higher rates. The forecast is heading toward 5%.

This is also a great way to convince millenials that they are wasting their money by renting and NOW is the time to buy to take advantage of these incredibly low rates. Because, there was a time when their parents paid interest rates that were DOUBLE what they are now and higher.

The MBA is bullish on home sales. Here is their 2016 predictions compared to 2015.

2015

Q1 – 4,973,000 (actual)

Q2 – 5,297,000 (actual)

Q3 – 5,477,000 (actual)

Q4 – 5,444,000

Now here’s what their economists forecast for homes sales in 2016:

2016

Q1 – 5,417,000

Q2 – 5,498,000

Q3 – 5,629,000

Q4 – 5,634,000

Nice. They obviously see demand shooting up as interest rates creep upward.

Real estate trends for 2016 empower brokers and agents with better technology

Sure Zillow, Trulia, Homes.com and Realtor.com are the big real estate heavyweights. These sites and others like them have great marketing power and resources.

The thing is, as technology advances, there are tremendous resources now available at the local level to Main Street real estate brokers and agent.

Take sites developed with the WordPress platform.

Now, with this easy to use, top-grade Content Management System, arguably the best in the world, local brokers and agents can create incredible, jaw-dropping websites that compete with the mega-sites.

WordPress real estate pages that show big, beautiful photos of properties. A site that shows a ton of those big beautiful photos covering everything from the appliances in the kitchen to the view of the woods in the back yard.

These custom WordPress sites take a different approach then the mega-sites. They are more personal, more localized.

Secondly, sure, the mega-sites because of their massive size, generate great rankings on the search engines. But with WordPress’ reputation as the working man’s tool for hyper-local Search Engine Optimization, brokers and agents now have the ability to move up on Google, Bing and Yahoo for high search engine rankings.

In fact, because it is so much easier to do SEO on WordPress sites, brokers and agents have an advantage for posting specific long tail keywords about their local neighborhoods. Keyword phrases that the mega-sites would never even know existed , eg “homes with barns near river in xyz town.”

WordPress allows brokers and agents to continually and easily updates their sites with new information without having to call in an IT guy or outside developer. Continually adding new information is one of the signals that search engines look for and they will reward that website by moving them up in the search results.

This is a game changer. This empowers local agents.

There’s more. Big data will continue to be one of the hot real estate trends of 2016.

Before, it was unimaginable that a local broker and agent would be able to gather hyper-local information such as Recent Homes Sales, Market Trends, School Information, Local Business Listings.

But today they can. Companies such as Home Junction are able to provide big data on a neighborhood level to brokers and agents.

Now, home buyers can find the hyper-local information they need on a local real estate website. Those buyers don’t need to wander all over the web looking for this data.

Local agents can embed it right on their site. Conveniently, right next to a lead form for more information or to contact the agent.

This whole process of finding quality community data is now in the hands of the local broker or agent. Those data leads becomes their lead, no one else’s and they don’t have to buy it. They have all the tools to attract their own prospects.

Think about how social media has given local brokers and agents tremendous access to millions of potential home buyers on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest?

Now, local brokers and agents have even better tools to catch their attention – from incredible, cool website design to displaying the latest market trends lines in any neighborhood.

The real estate trends for 2016 look very encouraging. Millennials and fence-sitters will have to make a move.

Local brokers and agents should also make a move to take advantage of the incredible real estate tools of 2016. This is the year they can make their websites into a powerhouse of local knowledge.

To find out how to make this happen, contact Home Junction here.