Market News December 20

Market Updates

Top Housing Hot Spots for 2025


Recently, NAR released a list of 10 metro markets that they're expecting to be next year's top performers. Their picks were based on criteria such as job growth, favorable financing, numbers of renters who are planning to buy, migration to the area, and shares of homeowners who are expected to move.

If one of these is within your territory, get ready to get busy:

  • Boston-Cambridge-Newton, Massachusetts-New Hampshire
  • Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, North Carolina-South Carolina
  • Grand Rapids-Kentwood, Michigan
  • Greenville-Anderson, South Carolina
  • Hartford-East-Hartford-Middletown, Connecticut
  • Indianapolis-Carmel-Anderson, Indiana
  • Kansas City, Missouri-Kansas
  • Knoxville, Tennessee
  • Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, Arizona
  • San Antonio-New Braunfels, Texas
Please note: these metro areas are in alphabetical order, as statistics did not determine which is expected to be the busiest.1

Create an Instagram Holiday Collage


Want to end your year with a cool collage? Instagram is currently promoting its collage tool to encourage users to create a showcase of their year. You can highlight anything that made your 2024 special, from hosting local events to your most meaningful sales.

If you're familiar with Pinterest's collage options or Shuffles app, these are replicated within Instagram, so you'll have a head start.

There are plenty of special apps and templates that will help you create a collage that celebrates 2024. Adobe Express, Canva, Pixlr and others make it easy, and many of these apps are free to download and/or use.2

Will Today's Predictions Change Your Future Outlook?


While economists and agents alike are hoping for the housing market to improve in 2025, there's still quite a bit of uncertainty. For example, inventory is expected to improve, but rising materials prices could slow construction.

Here's what some experts are predicting.

  • The average 30-year mortgage rate has seen a slight decrease, but not what many of us were hoping for. However, some economists are predicting rates to continue to fall during 2025.
  • Housing inventory will continue to improve. There's growing optimism among homebuilders, too, with lower interest rates granting more potential access to capital.
  • Real estate data specialist CoreLogic predicts total home sales will increase by 9% in 2025 (compared to 2024).
However, some numbers may continue to keep buyers out of the market.
  • The median home sale price in the U.S. as of October 2024 was $407,200, which was a year-over-year increase of 4.0%.
  • Home price growth increased in September 2024 by 3.9%, marking a 16th consecutive all-time high after accounting for seasonality.
Overall, one could describe these predictions as cautiously optimistic, although one final number—the waning inflation rate—may contribute to a more active housing market.3

Want To See Luxe Holiday Lights?


The tradition of putting up holiday lighting has been around for a long time, with Thomas Edison hanging up a set outside his laboratory in 1880. Today, it's estimated that over 150 million sets of lights are sold each year in the United States.

If you're wondering where the most dazzling displays are, here are some destinations to consider.

For more details, or to see over 20 additional destinations, click here for details.4

Why You're Better Off Being BBFs with AI Chatbots

You may already be using an AI chatbot like ChatGPT to assist you with composing drafts of listings, social media and client emails. However, you may not always be happy with the results delivered to you. There's an easy way to fix this, and that's by improving the quality of your prompts.

Instead of writing a shopping list, imagine that you're talking to an assistant, intern or fellow agent. Here are three examples of prompts that can get you better results:
  • Can you write an email drip campaign of four emails to send to my past clients over six months? I would like to talk about selling their homes, what's in it for them, why they might want to sell, and what that might mean for them.
  • Hey! Can you write 20 social media posts about how to start your day for success? Use emojis and make the tone friendly and conversational.
  • Can you suggest topics for a series of blog posts about the homebuying experience? Be sure to make them educational, please.
Here's another tip that may seem downright weird: be polite when you're typing in a prompt. Some chatbots will actually deliver a better response!5

Sources: 1www.nar.realtor, 2www.socialmediatoday.com, 3www.bankrate.com, 4www.travel.usnews.com, 5www.theclose.com