867: Zillow and Redfin Top Economists Give Their 2024 Housing Market Predictions

Hi, everyone, and welcome to the BiggerPockets network and happy New Year. If you're anything like me, you are entering 2024 excited about the housing market and real estate investing, but you probably also have a lot of questions. The last year, both in terms of macroeconomics and in terms of the housing market's performance, have been a little bit up and down. It's been a little bit confusing. And so even though there's a lot of opportunity in 2024, there are also a lot of questions that remain unanswered. So today we have a very special episode. To help answer some of those questions, I am bringing in two renowned senior economists to discuss the state of the economy and the housing market. We're going to make predictions about 2024. We're going to provide all the stats and all the context you need to feel confident in building your portfolio. And that's true whether you're trying to buy your first property in 2024 or you're trying to scale up an already existing portfolio. So today our two guests are Chen Zhao, who's a senior economist at Redfin, and Orfeh Duvunguy, who's the senior economist at Zillow. And we're going to get into all of the topics that are probably on your mind. We're going to talk about things like inflation, housing prices, and of course, we will be talking about mortgage rates. Everyone always wants to talk about those. So by the end of this episode, you're going to have a very good understanding of where we stand with the economy and the housing market today and where it is likely to be going over the course of the next year. So, with no further ado, let's bring on Chen Zhao from Redfin and Orfeh Devonguy from Zillow. Chen Zhao and Orfe Di Vungai, welcome to our first ever economics roundtable on the BiggerPockets podcast. We're so excited to have both of you and your extensive industry expertise with us here today, because there are a lot of questions that I have, and I assume that our audience have as well, about the 2024 macroeconomic climate and as well as the housing market. Today in the show, we're going to start with the macroeconomic, and then we'll get a little bit more specific down into the housing market, things that everyone who listens to the show is probably interested in. But let's just start with the economy in the broadest sense. So, Chen, tell me, what do you think is going to be happening with GDP in the coming year, all signs.

Point to a slightly slower economic growth in rounding out Q4 and into 2024. So, you know, GDP now has Q4 running about 1.2%. The Fed is projecting that 2024, we're going to see GDP growth about 1.4%. This is all solid economic growth, but definitely slower than what we've seen, which was kind of the goal, what the Fed was trying to achieve. That being said, there's I think still a good amount of uncertainty heading into 2024. Right. The Fed is pivoting right now. So especially after that December meeting, we really saw a Fed that was saying we probably and now we're trying like, you know, looking the other, looking to see what the path down looks like. And the Fed, you know, you should always remember, is kind of like driving this car, but doesn't have like total control of it. It's kind of like when you play a video game, you're like, is this steering wheel really working? I'm not really sure, you know, but you know, the Fed controls short term rates really well, but the Fed has a lot less control over long term rates. And that's especially important if you're thinking about housing like, you know, those of us here do. And we saw that this past fall when, you know, long term rates, you know, 10 year was up to 5%, mortgage rates shot up to 8%. The Fed didn't do anything different. Powell never came out and said anything. That just sort of happened and that surprised the Fed. Right. And I think probably, I would guess similarly that after the December Fed meeting when Powell came out and gave a pretty dovish press conference, that he probably was always also a little bit surprised at the extent of the market reaction. I'm not in Pelta, but that's what I would guess, right? So all of this just to say that the Fed is still like, you know, the only game in town, but the Fed does not have perfect control over what is happening and that makes it really hard to think about 2024. So even though we think that we're probably going to have fairly solid economic growth, we should be aware that there's a lot of risk.

Chen I totally agree. I mean, the way I like to think of this is I, I like to think of headwinds versus tailwinds, right? And so sitting down, when you think about your own forecast, sitting down and kind of highlighting what the headwinds are and what the tailwinds are and trying to estimate, come up with which ones will dominate the other is how I kind of think about what's going on. So we know, for example, that we have an election year coming up. We know that most election years, especially when an election is very contested and the country is somewhat polarized, Congress is polarized, then you have a ton more policy uncertainty. And I always say when people are uncertain about the future, they sit on their wallets, they sit back, they wait, they pause, they don't go out and buy a new car. And so usually that's disinflationary. That could cause economic activity to slow down. And so that's going to be a headwind for the U.S. economy going into 2024.

Yeah. Even taking that one step further, Orfeh, I think your framework is perfect. You know, when there's so much uncertainty, like, it's hard for consumers to plan what they're going to do, it's really hard for businesses to plan what they're going to do because they don't know when you're heading into that election year, you know, what are, who's going to win, you know, who's going to be in charge, who's going to be making the rules, what are like the policies and regulations I'm going to be facing a year, two years, three years from now. And, and that makes it really hard for businesses to say, like, well, I'm now I'm going to invest in X, Y or Z. And that does tend to be a little bit of a drag on the economy.

We can add to this, right. Being a little bit more specific. We got the Trump tax cuts set to expire. Right. You know, you probably not going to be a shift in terms of government spending into the next year, but potentially, you know, more revenue coming from the tax cuts expiring. Right. And so, and maybe less borrowing. Right. And that, of course, has an impact on yields and mortgage rates. Right.

We're going to get the details of what Chen and Orfeh see in their forecast for the housing market a little later on, and we're going to get their pulse on the average US Consumer right after the break. So I tried explaining a sandwich lease to my insurance guy once, and he just blinked at me like I made it up. And that's sort of the thing. Right. Most insurance companies don't understand how we invest. You, you go vacant for a few weeks, you switch strategies, you hold stuff in an LLC and suddenly your coverage doesn't fit. That's why I recommend National Real Estate Insurance Group. They actually get real estate investors. Their coverage adjusts as your property changes and you get one monthly bill for everything. No matter how weird your portfolio is, you can check them out@nreig.com bppod that's nreig.com bppod some real estate sites tell you what's for sale. Propstream tells you what will be Finding the right deals used to mean hours of guessing. Now Propstream gives you the data edge access to over 160 million properties, 165/ filters and 20 lead lists that spot motivated sellers before anyone else. Plus, with batch leads and batch dialer you get data comps at a 99% accuracy rate and outreach in one seamless workflow. Use free skip tracing on selected plans, reach out instantly and let AI insights tell you which properties actually make sense. Try a free seven day trial and get 50 leads free@propstream.com BP that's propstream.com BP want to invest in real estate but don't have the time or know the best local markets? Rent to Retirement has got you covered. Here's the deal. They've helped thousands of investors just like you find turnkey homes across the best US Markets. And best of all, they do all the heavy lifting for you. With over 255 star ratings on bigger pockets, Rent to Retirement experts help you build strategies to retire early through real estate. And right now, Rent to Retirement offers some amazing incentives on turnkey new construction properties. Just for example, you can get up to 30% off new build prices or you can get 0% down loan options or interest rates available as low as 3.99%. So don't miss out. These deals will not last. Text REI to 33777 or visit biggerpockets.com retirement to start investing in top cash flow markets today. Welcome back everyone. We are here with senior economists from Redfin, Anzillo, Chen Zhao and Orfeh Devongai talking about their predictions for 2024. You've talked about a little bit about headwinds sort of the macroeconomic climate the Fed I'm curious your opinion on the state of sort of the average American, average American household or consumer. Because you do look at this broad macro data and you see GDP is fairly strong. You see a lot of positive indicators, but on a lot of sort of more micro levels and personal finance levels. And anecdotally too you hear people are struggling. We've seen student loan repayments start. Chen, how would you describe the state of the average American consumer right now?

I think that what we saw was that coming out of the pandemic, the government just you know, funneled so much money into the economy. The consumer was doing really well and kind of an unprecedented way. And what we've seen, the starkest, you know, data that we had on that was just how much excess savings people had in their bank accounts coming out of the pandemic. Right? Like, just like actual cash that they had to spend. And, you know, what we've seen now is that, well, that excess cash is mostly gone at this point. Right? So we see data from JP Morgan, from Bank of America, who can look at people's bank accounts, and we can see that's pretty much like at this point, gone. And then we're also seeing, like you said, more credit card delinquencies. So that's a piece of data that's coming out of the New York Fed's household debt and credit report where we're showing that the transition into 90 day delinquency is now at like, I think something like 9.5% or something like that. And that's, you know, elevated relative to historical levels. So that might be something to be concerned about as well. And then also student loan repayments. Right? So student loan repayment. Student loan payments were put on hold during the pandemic. They resumed in October. The total amount of payments that would need to be paid by consumers is estimated to be about $70 billion. So we think that's about 0.3% of disposable personal income. So that's like, you know, not a huge amount, but enough to make a debt right. In people's, like, spending habits. So there are reasons, I think these are all reasons you might be thinking, well, consumers are probably weaker than where they were. But like so many things, so many different economic metrics and statistics that we've been watching since the pandemic. A lot of it, I think, is about, well, what is the change versus the level. So it's like the consumer is weakening, but the consumer is also just fine. So because we were coming from such a strong standing that even if you are weakening a little bit, you're still actually probably just fine. And we see this in many other metrics. For example, we know that consumers are experiencing real income growth right now. Wages have been increasing a lot. So that is important. We also know that there's a really strong labor market that is a huge tailwind for consumers. So right now we think there's probably 2 to 3 million more open jobs than there are unemployed workers. So this is a very, very strong labor market. And finally, you know, you can look at, you know, we know that credit card delinquencies are probably a little bit high. That's mostly focused in certain types of consumers. Those with worse credit, younger consumers. But then you also look at, on the other hand, like, mortgage delinquencies, for example. Mortgage delinquencies are so, so low right now. So, like, there's a lot of data that also just shows that the consumers, you know, pretty good right now. So I would say I'm not terribly worried about the US Consumer. And I think this is all, like, kind of very consistent with the broader economic message, which is that we're kind of cooling, but we're not in an area where we should be worried right now.

I totally agree. We're cooling, but we're probably better off than we were before the pandemic. If you look at debt servicing as a share of personal income, still very low, roughly around where it was in 2019 before the pandemic. So, you know, you look on the surface, we're doing well. Are we cooling? Yes. Are we feeling the pinch? Yes. But we're, we're still, you know, we're doing much better than we were probably just, you know, three, four years ago. Right. So. So now I totally agree. I think that's the consumer is in pretty good shape still. Of course, there's a distribution, right? So you're gonna have, you know, people at the bottom that are going to feel. Feel a little bit of pain still.

But you look at the labor market, and I think as long as people have jobs, the US Economy is going to be okay.

All right, So I think the theme that we're hearing here for everyone listening to this, is that the US Economy is doing pretty well by most macroeconomic measurements right now. But Chen and Orfeh seem to agree that we're slowing down, and so we might still continue growing. It sounds like both of you think that we'll still remain positive in terms of GDP growth next year. And even though consumers might be in a worse position than they were this year or the previous year, that things are still decent in a historical context, both in terms of macroeconomic indicators and the situation for, for consumers.

So, Dave, you know, it's even. It's hard to, to really say, right, if we're worse off than we were. Right? Because if you think about, you know, Chen alluded to this, right? Wages, adjusted for inflation have actually increased. They had been decreased. They decreased in 21 and decreased in 22 as inflation rose to roughly 9% midway through last year. Financial wealth, you look at the Fed report Financial wealth has actually increased at the end of 2022. If you told me the stock market would have done what it did in 2023, I would have thought you were absolutely crazy. The stock market went on a tear in 2023. Surprised everyone. Right. And we're finishing the year so strong. And so financial, Financial wealth also increased. Housing wealth. Right. We had this big dip where we thought, oh, my goodness, the house prices are coming down. And all of a sudden house prices rebounded. Home equity. Right. Is still near an all time high. Yeah. Prices have fallen in a lot of metros. Home equity is still near an all time high for a lot of homeowners. These homeowners bought. A lot of these homeowners who bought before the pandemic were able to refinance at very low rates without very low monthly mortgage payments. And so, and so, you know, I, I look at this and I say, hey, this consumer, this average consumer, the middle class might actually be doing really well right now.

Yeah. You know, it's funny you say that, Orfeh, because, like, I totally agree with all these statistics you're saying, you know, like, all the metrics are great. And then it's like we have this problem where everyone seems at bad vibes about the economy. Yes, Ryan, everyone is super negative.

That's what I wanted to ask you. Yeah.

Yeah.

That's so interesting.

So what, what is that, Chen? What do you, what do you attribute that to? Like, and macro data, classical measurements show that things are doing well, but it doesn't seem that people feel the economy is doing well. So where's the disconnect?

Yeah, it's. Yeah, you're, you're absolutely right. It does feel like there is a disconnect. Right. Because just like Orfe said, it's like, wow, your income is growing. You have so much housing wealth, you have like, whatever your portfolio is, it's doing fantastic, you know, yada, yada, yada. And at the same time, the Fed is like, you know, taming inflation. So we don't really need to, maybe we don't need to worry about that anymore. So why are you worried? Right. I think that a lot of it, I think there's like two things I would say. One is that, you know, as economists, we always look at the median or the average. That's the most accessible thing to look at.

Right.

And the distribution is just really wide. You're going to have pockets of people who just have a very different experience than the median or the average person. Right. And those people are real people. Right. They're real voters and they're real people with real feelings. So that's, I think, a lot of it. And then the second thing I would say is just that even though, you know, the Fed has, you know, seems like the Fed has gotten inflation tamed, you know, and inflation is now going to be much closer to 2 to 3%, we have experienced a big price level jump, and it takes a long time for people to psychologically, like, acclimate to that. Like, I was trying to. Not to call out the Rock hats or anything, but. Which I think is a fantastic show. But, like, I was looking at tickets for the Rock hats, and I was like, holy cow, that is really high. And I was like, wow. I guess if it's like, you know, this percent, this percent, then it's like, it does make sense that this, like, what is what the price level is, even if there's not gonna be further inflation in the future. But for people, I think even though, like, maybe they've seen their, you know, paychecks increase, they're still experienced that sticker shock when they're seeing the prices. And that's like a negative kind of, you know, sentiment sort of thing. So those are the two things that I would point to. And then on the kind of, like, pocket pockets of people who, you know, are not experiencing what the average or the median person is experiencing. Importantly for the housing market, I think we should think about, like, people who don't yet own a home. Right? So, you know, we're talking about housing wealth, all the people who refinance. You have a 2% mortgage rate and you have so much home equity. But what if I never bought a home to begin with? Right. Or like, a lot of Americans don't own any stock. So I don't care if the s and P500 is doing great.

That's right.

That's not benefiting me at all. So. So I think that's where a lot of these kind of, like, bad vibes are coming from.

I absolutely agree with Chen. I think this is probably the price. I get this all the time, and I'm very active on social media and where you report on inflation coming down and people are like, no, this is not true. Right. Because prices are higher than they were just a year ago.

Right. Yeah. Well, if my parents are any indication of your ideas here, you're absolutely right. I can't have a single conversation with either of them where they don't tell me the new price of every single thing that they've bought over the Last couple of weeks, it just like, can't fathom it. And I do think people also get confused between the idea of disinflation and deflation. That disinflation is the slowing down of price, of price gains. But there's not going to be, there's very unlikely going to be deflation where prices actually get lower. So those two things are different concepts. But I think you're totally right, Chen, that it takes a really long time for people to really get used to it. I feel I look at all the data and I still look at and get sticker shock at a lot of the things I buy.

Yeah. And not only do you, like, are we not going to get deflation? You do not want deflation.

Exactly.

If you get deflation, like, that means we are in really serious trouble. Because, like, it almost seems counterintuitive. People are like, well, don't I want prices to like, decline so I have like, you know, increased real purchasing power. But you don't, because in an economy like that, no one would ever buy anything. Like, if you could, like, buy eggs, like cheaper tomorrow, why would you buy eggs today? And that is a really, like, dangerous economic cycle to get into. So that's why we aim for that nice 2% inflation.

And it also means the unemployment rate could soar. Right. If you're not buying anything. Right. Businesses have no reasons to hire anyone. Right. They might even lay off a lot of people. And so, you know, you end up losing your job.

So we've talked about the broad macroeconomic economy and what's going on and what you both think is likely to happen in the next year. But I'd like to shift the conversation more to the housing market because our audience here, most of them are active or aspiring real estate investors. And the million dollar question for a lot of people is, is it a good time to buy real estate? And I know there's a lot of factors that go into that. But Chen, I'm just curious, can you give us at the highest level your outlook for the housing market next year?

So I think, I would say our top line is that the housing market in 2024, we see picture for buyers, better circumstances for buyers. Most important reason for that is because we see affordability improving a little bit next year. So we do think that rates will be coming down. You know, we're seeing after the December Fed meeting already that the Fed is pivoting. You know, we're talking about rate cuts in 2024. There's obviously an open question of how many when Are they going to come? But it really seems like rates are going to be on a downward path. Look, it's, we're not headed to like the 3%, you know, pandemic error rates, but we're heading to like kind of lower territory. So that's going to be fairly significant for buyers and for sellers as well. And then the second thing is we do see prices softening in 2024. So, you know, prices softening is kind of like, can be a little bit of a nuanced topic because, you know, so generally we're talking about nominal prices, right? So that means like not taking into account inflation. So like 0% price growth is, you know, for example, actually prices declining in a real sense because inflation is higher than 0%. So we really see prices kind of like either being like kind of flat in the 0% or falling maybe 1% range. So that is improved affordability for buyers compared to what they're seeing in terms of increases in their paychecks for both rates and prices. And then in addition to that, we see more inventory coming online. And that's part of the reason why we see prices softening is because I think in our Redfin data, we're seeing that customers who are contacting Redfin to have consults about listing their home, we're seeing double digit growth year over year in that in the latest weeks. And that hasn't turned into actual listings just yet. But even in the actual new listings data, we're starting to see like those ticks up in the last few weeks. So we think there's more coming down the pipeline. And the reason for all of this is I think people are getting tired of waiting. You know, our agents are telling us that, you know, that customer, that customers that they're talking to are like they have been waiting for something to happen in the housing market is they want to divorce their husband or they need to move for some other reason to like, you know, because they want to be closer to their grandkids or something like that. Something more positive than divorcing your husband.

But okay, you heard it here first, Jen. Are you saying the divorce rates are going to go up, interest rates go down, divorce rates go up?

I would rather make it all on interest rates rather than divorce rates.

Okay.

I think the point is life happens, right? And you know, life events are one of the major reasons people move in the first place, right?

Yep, that's right. Yeah. So I think people are, sellers are getting tired of waiting and they're realizing that rates are never going back to 3%. And they're just like, so they're saying, you know what, I'm going, I'm selling, I'm doing the thing I need to do at this point. So that's a much better picture for buyers and means better affordability. Plus you have more homes to choose from. So we do see a more optimistic picture for 2024 than 2023.

That's really interesting because you see, as you said, the most recent Fed meeting, which was in December, we saw this announcement that pushed down bond yields, mortgage rates started to fall a little bit. And I think the most immediate reaction from most real estate investors was, wow, this is going to kick off a big another round of appreciation of home price growth because it's going to increase demand. But I just want to make sure everyone here understands what Chen is saying is that demand may go up, but if supply also goes up at the same time, prices could stay relatively flat and perhaps we could see softening prices. But we might also see an increase in total transaction volume, which would probably be very welcome news to any agents or mortgage lenders here who are listening to this. And that has sort of been my question about 2024 is like rates may come down, demand is going to come up. But I've just been curious about where supply is going to come from. We'll hear from Orfeh on supply and demand, plus more discussion on affordability, the mortgage rate predictions everyone wants to hear, and which markets to watch in 2024, all coming up after the break. Okay, let's say you're one property's mid flip, one's between tenants, one's on Airbnb. Now try explaining that setup to a regular insurance company. Yeah, it's not fun. But with National Real Estate Insurance Group, it's actually easy. They're built for this stuff. Whether it's flips, short term rentals, even creative deals like subject to or sandwich leases. Doesn't matter if you've got properties in an LLC or a trust either. They just roll it all into one bill and their coverage flexes as your properties change. If you invest in real estate, this is who you want. Go to nreig.com bppod to check it out. That's n r e I g.com bppod deals don't just fall in your lap anymore. You've gotta hunt them. Propstream is the secret weapon. 160 million properties, 165 plus search filters and 20 lead lists like vacant homes and pre foreclosures. Their AI powered insights even score property condition and wholesale potential so you know where the real opportunities are hiding. And now that PropStream's acquired batch leads and batch dialer data and outreach finally live together. You can skip Trace for free, hit leads with a power dialer and close before your competition even blinks. Try it free for seven days and get 50 leads free@propstream.com BP that's propstream.com BP do you want to invest in cash flowing rentals but don't have the time to manage the properties? Is your local market too competitive or expensive to invest in? Rent to Retirement offers new construction turnkey investment properties that you can buy with as little as 5% down and rates as low as 3.99%. Their team handles everything from financing, management, insurance and more so you can live where you want and invest in the markets that offer the best returns. Rent to Retirement has the best reputation in the industry with more five star reviews than any other company on the Biggerpockets website. To learn more, visit biggerpockets.com retirement or just text REI 233777 to start investing in the best markets today. It's 3am on the 6th and you're wondering if you should text your tenant about rent. Here's a better idea. Don't with avail. Rent collection runs on autopilot. Automatic reminders go out, payments land directly in your account. Late fees trigger when needed. Tenants can enable AutoPay and with FastPay you can get paid as soon as the next day. Sign up for free at Avail co Biggerpockets. That's a V A I L co Biggerpockets Avail handles rent collection so you can actually get some sleep.

We're back with Orfe Devungai and Chen Zhao. Chen just shared a possible scenario where we could see more supply and more demand in 2024. Orfeh do you see the same sort of situation where both demand and supply could increase a bit next year?

Totally. Totally. And by the way, I'm the most optimistic member of the Zillow economic research team and sometimes they laugh at me a little bit because you know, I always see always see everything in a positive light. So new listings going up, up 3.1% year over year according to our data. And you know they were down a lot, right? Especially in the spring when you were hopeful that existing homeowners would be putting their homes on the market, on the for sale market, they just didn't show up. And now we're starting to see, right? If you look at the since about July of this Year, new listings, the flow of homes coming on the market was pretty much flat, right? And it's, you know, and then, and it's now catching up. So I'm very optimistic. And like Chen mentioned, I think life events, but also preferences haven't changed. You know, that old house, you know, that you don't want to live in anymore, you know, you were sitting around kind of just because a little bit of uncertainty, right?

Ton of mortgage rate volatility. You don't know what's happening with the economy. And so you pause, you sit on your wallet, you wait, you don't do anything. But now, you know, you start to see things kind of normalize. And now you can adjust your budget, you can look at things and make sense of, oh, okay, well, you know, now I know where I'm headed. I still have my job. Things are looking pretty good. I know mortgage rates are not going to fall off a cliff anymore. I think a lot of people are sitting there thinking, hey, maybe mortgages are going to come down. And we know mortgages are easing, but they're not going to fall off a cliff. I tell everybody the only times we've seen mortgages fall off a cliff was the bursting of the dot com bubble, the middle of the global financial crisis, and the start of a global pandemic. And we know mortgages are not going to fall off a cliff. They're going to ease a little bit. We may even see a little bit less rate volatility. Especially if inflation continues to move towards the Fed's target. The market will become less responsive to all the economic news like it has been in the past year. So all of that is going to be conducive to getting people out there again. Our data, Zillow data also shows that 70% of sellers end up buying again, right? Not 100%, 70%. So you're gonna have more supply from those guys than demand going, you know, if you, if you continue to see new listings come up into 2024. And so all of that together tells me, just like Chen mentioned, that you're going to probably see prices soften a little bit. New listings are no longer going to be a big drag on housing inventory. And of course, I think I'm optimistic. I think that might mean more transactions going forward.

I appreciate that explanation. Orfeh, you say you're an optimist, so I just want to play devil's advocate here for just a second and just get your opinion, because I think there is a narrative or common line of thinking that I hear that affordability is just so low right now that even if rates come down a little bit, prices are just too high. And it's somewhat, people feel, I think, inevitable that prices have to come down because they're just so much higher than they used to be. So. And you couple that with some of the things you said about perhaps a slowing economy, do you think? What do you say to that?

I guess I think builders probably worry about that a little bit too. Right. So they have a ton of homes under construction still. Those homes are coming on the market, housings. And of course, because there's so many homes that are coming on the market on the new construction site, you're starting to see builder sentiment decline a little bit and you start to see starts. Why would I start a new project if I have a ton of units that are coming that I need to sell? And so all of that I think we're going to see. But just to give you an idea, yes, affordability is still a problem. But if you think about the fact that mortgage rates were lower than they are today, last year than they are today, and yet the average price cut for new construction hasn't changed, still about 6%, the share of listings of a price cut relative to last year is actually lower. Right. So if you didn't have. If people just couldn't afford a home. And by the way, I have to say the housing market is local, right? So I'm talking kind of on average, the US level. There are places that are absolutely unaffordable, you know, that you just absolutely can't. Even. People can't qualify. You know, I'm thinking of the LA area, Riverside, California. I mean, you know, there are places that are just out of reach for a lot of people. But just on average.

You know, you still have, you still have some demand out there. Demand has slowed, but there's, there's demand still exceeds supply. And so that's why I'm still very optimistic going forward. And I'm not the only one, right. We hear about Warren Buffett and new construction and the love for new construction going forward. So I'm very Fairly optimistic that 2024 could be a better year because new listings have already bottomed in 2023.

Yeah, I think the affordability question is a really good one. And it's also, it's one of the reasons why. Dave, you were saying, well, if rates are dropping, why won't prices just more. It's like. Well, actually, because I think affordability puts a cap on that. Because I think at some point, people just can't afford to buy more. But I think the affordability correction doesn't have to come in the form of this big drop in prices, right? Like the 20, the 2008 style price drop. That only happened once, and there's a reason it only happened once in a very unique, under very unique circumstances. Right. So I think if you can also see affordability improvements in the form of like a multi year span of time where you see prices only like being like flat or up 1% or down 1% or something like that, where prices are just increasing less than inflation, but just a little bit less than inflation. And that is an improvement in affordability. Right. And also we do expect rates to come down as well. So, like a lot of the affordability issue in the last year has been a rates issue and not necessarily a price issue issue.

I want to make sure everyone understands what affordability means in terms of the housing market. It's basically how easily the average American can afford the average price home. Or as Orfeh accurately pointed out, this is also local, how, how easily someone in a particular market can afford that particular home in that market. And there are generally three sort of legs to this affordability stool. There's mortgage rates, as Chen just alluded to. There's home prices and there's also wages. There are different ways that more affordability can go up or down. It's not just home prices.

That's the perfect explanation for it. And yeah, so the other thing that I would say that wouldn't, you know, I would say point to not seeing a big price decline is just like the tailwind, the demographic tailwinds for home prices and for demand. You know, we still, we know that, you know, millennials are still in this like, age where we need to buy homes, right? People are having kids, they just like, they need to buy homes. So there's a lot of demand out there. And then we have Gen Z coming up, right? So like a lot of demographic analysis really is showing this, you know, very. We're entering into these years of very strong home buyer demand. So even though, you know, prices are high, rates are still high right now. You know, there's just a lot of need out there.

And Chen, you're absolutely spot on. And you can add to that list population from abroad. You got a lot of new families coming from abroad. Right. We finally reopened kind of after Covid, where you had immigration the last, even a few years before COVID you know, immigration levels into the country had kind of slowed all of a sudden. We have more immigrant, more people coming into the country and that actually turns into more families in addition. Right. Net new families. And that pushes the men higher.

Well, thank you. That's a very, very useful explanation since we're talking about affordability. I'm sorry to do this to you both, but I have to try and get a prediction from each of you on mortgage rates. I'll let you. You can have a range. But Orfeh, what do you think? Do you think, where do you think mortgage rates will be a year from now In December of 2024, if you had to guess?

Very, very difficult to predict. And you can see it. I mean, in the market reaction that we got, the market was pricing in four rate cuts. The Fed hinted at three, and yet yields continued to fall. Right. So, you know, I'm not Dave's. Unfortunately, I'm not going to give you a number, but I'm going to tell you that the way I think about it, again is headwinds versus tailwinds. Right. And the market's very unpredictable. But we know going into next year we have, you know, all of these disinflation that's going to help bring yields down. Then you have the mortgage rate spread. Right. Which kind of depends on uncertainty. And that's likely. If we see less volatility going forward, that's probably going to. In the markets, that's probably going to shrink as well. At the same time, I mentioned earlier that we're going to have a lot of policy uncertainty ahead of the election. Right. In the summer of next, in the summer of 24, in the few months before the election, that's going to be a drag on economic activity as well. And that's going to be disinflationary. And so again, I expect yields to continue to ease, to continue to move lower. I don't expect them to fall off a cliff, especially if the Fed can stick the lending essentially and we can avoid a recession in 2024.

All right, Chang, can I get a number out of you?

I understand the hesitation to give a number. Right. It's hard. There's so much uncertainty these days. I would guess that the number starts with a six in December 2024. In our Redfin predictions, we guessed, I'd say, I think something like six and a half by the end of 2024. We published that before the December Fed meeting where Powell really started to show a pivot. So maybe it will be a little bit lower than that. Maybe it'll be in the lower sixes. But I think warfare Gave you a really good framework for thinking about what will happen with rates. It depends on what the Fed funds rate does. And then there's a lot of uncertainty around all of that. But on top of that you had mortgage rate spreads obviously, and that might collapse a little bit. But critically, there's what happens with the Fed funds rate and what the Fed is going to do. But then there's what happens with long term rates, like what the 10 year treasury is going to do. And the Fed just has very little control over that. So that can go, that could stay the same, go up or go down as the Fed is cutting. It's a little bit uncertain, depending on what else the Fed is saying and what other economic circumstances there are and what else investors are worried about. So in this past summer, investors became very worried about government debt levels, like tax revenues, kind of the long term sustainability of our spending and how much treasury supply there was. And so yields really shot up and rates really shot up. And that really had nothing to do like a very little to do with inflation. Right. So that's what makes it really hard to guess. But I think if I were kind of, you know, someone who was looking to buy a home in the near future, I would guess that in 2024 you're going to round out the year with numbers that, you know, around like a number that starts with a six, probably, maybe in the low sixes.

And then also, Chen, you alluded to all these factors and then there's also.

The global economy.

From abroad. Investors abroad are looking to US Assets.

When you have conflict abroad, you have geopolitical tensions. That could mean more investors come in to absorb all of that treasury supply. Those are all factors to keep track of, which is why, you know, the job of forecasting yields is very, very difficult.

Yeah, that's a great point. I want to just sort of reiterate and make sure everyone listening understands this. The Fed does not control mortgage rates. They control the federal funds rate, which of course has an impact on, on bond yields and on, on businesses and all these other different complicated things that impact mortgage rates. But just because the Fed says that they might cut rates three times next year, I don't think we should all be taking a victory lap. I think it's encouraging, but you know, there's still likely to be some volatility in rates, at least in the short term while we see where bond yields start to head. And again, we've seen the Fed indicate things that they wound up not doing. So we also, there's just no guarantee that they're going to stick to the plan or the indication that they've given us as of December of 2024. But that said, I think, you know, things are looking encouraging. I want to turn to risk because, you know, most of the people who listen to this podcast are investing. They're not, you know, buying a home to. To live in for five to 10 years. And so I'm curious, although you've shared some of your feelings about the housing market and where it might be going. I'm curious, Chen, do you have any thoughts on what risks might exist for real estate investors heading into the next year?

I think the risks are going to be regional. So I think that overall, as we have been discussing, if you're a real estate investor, I really don't see prices coming down a ton. However, I do think there could be certain markets where you do see some significant price declines. We're already seeing some pretty significant price declines in places in Texas, for example. So I think Austin, in our data, is down close to like, double digits year over year on median sale price. So a lot of these places that actually where it was a lot easier to build additional supply, which was great in the pandemic when people were really trying to move there, it was easier to build that supply to meet the demand, and prices were going up a lot. We're now probably seeing that.

The opposite, where there's less demand, so there's more risk for prices coming down in some of those markets. So a lot of these might be Sunbelt areas, like Austin, for example. So that's where I would probably be a little bit more cautious, but I would feel a little bit safer in the more affordable places, places where prices are lower. So we see that, you know, in upstate New York or in the Midwest, where prices are below the national median, those places are some of the tightest markets that we're seeing where homes are going the fastest. I think in Rochester, we were seeing the homes were going off the market in eight days, you know, on average. And that's because these places are just very affordable. And in a time where affordability is really strained, they're very, very attractive.

Makes sense. I love the Rochester shout out. I went to college there. Orfeh, what about you? Do you see any other risks in the market?

If you look at the latest American Community survey data for 2022, Austin, Texas was the fastest metro out of the top 50 metros, at least fastest growing by population.

And the housing stock there just exploded at the same time. And housing stock grew faster than even the fastest population growth. And so now you end up in a situation where you have all these homes. And so, of course, prices, it's in prices falling. Right. And so, you know, I think Chen alluded to this. We're seeing the same thing in our data. Whether or not.

Whether or not that's going to continue is another story. Because I think that, you know, if people are going to places, Austin may not be affordable for locals. But if people are going to Austin from California, by the way, we know 30% of Californians are moving to basically Texas, Arizona and Florida. So if people are moving from the more expensive California metros to Texas and then they're seeing that prices are falling so much, well, that decline in prices might actually be a good thing going forward. And then I like, you know, I also like some of these markets. You know, Charlotte, Raleigh, North Carolina, you got that research triangle there. You still got a lot of people moving to that area. You got the Nashville, Tennessee market, which is one of my favorites also with still a lot of population growth. And so those are markets where I expect to see the continued population growth. Right. But you also have to be careful in the sense that, you know, if you have a lot of renters that can't necessarily go out and buy a home, or you have a lot of people or builders, expect population growth to remain robust in some of these markets. Well, you're probably going to see a lot of supply, right? If I anticipate, if I anticipate all these renters coming, well, you know, I'm gonna, you're gonna see a lot of people wanting to become landlords and, and renter and builders building a ton of supply. And so maybe you're not going to get the types of returns on your investment that you thought because everybody's kind of doing the same thing. So that's kind of why I talk to agents a lot. I love agents, work together a lot. And so I talk to agents and agents are telling me, yeah, it's booming here, but. Yeah, but builders are also coming in big time, right. And so now you might have to compete with, you know, so I was looking at single family townhomes and homes in the Nashville area. And then next door you have a multifamily unit and they have a swimming pool, pickleball court. They're offering rent concessions, right? So now if you're a landlord in a townhome right next to a place like that, you have to compete with the concessions that the other guys are offering right next door. And so you have that supply coming. If the demand was anticipated, you have a ton of supply. And so now you're also having to compete with the other new landlords. New landlords in town.

That's a great point, Orfeh. I really resonate with that because I still own a couple properties in Denver, which is definitely one of those more overbuilt areas in terms of multifamily supply. And I wound up selling a property because you just look around you and I, you know, it's one of these old, like, Victorians that are cut up into four, four different units. It was a nice place. But then you see these, like, brand new things with a gym coming on and it's offering similar rent. And I was like, I can't compete with that. And even if I could keep vacancies, you know, pretty minimal rent growth is going to be stunted in that area just because you're facing a lot of competition. And so that's something it's a really important risk for people to think about in their market. But that one, again, is super regional, like where multifamily supplies coming online tend to be in these sort of hotter markets. It's really less significant. I think in some of these tertiary or smaller cities, you just don't see it as much.

That's right.

Chen, are there any markets that you think are particularly interesting, either in a positive or negative way next year?

Yeah, I think that in addition to Sunbelt and these really affordable places, I think, like watching, you know, the west coast markets are going to be really interesting because those are the ones that had the big price correction that we saw or like late in 2022, early in 2023. And those are the kinds of places where I think people are kind of going back in and saying, maybe there's a deal to be had now. And they're also the places where, you know, we're seeing some of these, you know, trends around return to office that are changing now. Right. So I think, you know, companies are becoming a little bit more strict with return to office. You're kind of, you know, you're hearing stories about boomerang migration. We hear those from our agents where they're saying, yeah, this person, they moved to Boise, but then they discovered that either they wanted to move to a place that had a lot more jobs in Boise, or they just discovered that the Boise lifestyle really wasn't for them. It turns out, you know, that maybe they actually want to be closer to like a San Francisco or Seattle or something like that. And maybe similarly, you see something like that with, you know, like a Miami to, like, New York kind of thing. So I think keeping an eye on those places, like the San Franciscos, the Seattle's, the, you know, New yorks and the DCs, where people like, we're leaving those places and seeing what's going to happen in 2024 would be really interesting.

Great. Well, thank you both so much. This has been a fascinating conversation. I gotta tell you guys. I thought having someone from Redfin, Zillow, two heavyweights in the industry, we're gonna have like this big clash. But you guys agreed on a lot of stuff, so hopefully that helps our audience and feel confident about what's going on next year that we have a couple of economists agreeing with each other, which is not always the case when you bring two. Two. Two different economists together. But thank you both so much. It's really appreciated. Orfeh, if people want to learn more about your research and the work that your team does, where should they do that?

Yeah, Zillow.com research and if you want to look me up on social Media, I'm on LinkedIn. You can just type in my name and it'll be very easy to find me.

All right, thank you. What about you, Chen?

Yeah, we're similarly@redfin.com news. You can also follow Redfin on social media on Instagram or Twitter, or formerly known as Twitter, I guess, these days, or other social media platforms.

Well, thanks again to both of you. We hope to have you back on the show again soon.

All right, thanks so much for having us.

Thanks for having us.

Thank you all for listening to the Biggerpockets Real Estate Podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer. The show is produced by Ian K. Copywriting is by Calico. Content and editing is by Exodus Media. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing or to sign up for our free newsletter, please visit www.biggerpockets.com. the content of this podcast is for informational purposes only. All host and participant opinions are their own. Investment in any asset, real estate included, involves risk, so use your best judgment and consult with qualified advisors before investing. You should only risk capital you can afford to lose. And remember, past performance is not indicative of future results. BiggerPockets, LLC disclaims all liability for direct, indirect, consequential or other damages arising from a reliance on information presented in this podcast.