Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Industry Relations Episode 59: Forecasting a Hot Housing Market in 2021 – with Jeff Tucker, Senior Economist at Zillow

Zillow’s Economic Research Team just released its forecast for 2021, and they expect it to be the best year for home sales since 2005. In fact, Zillow’s number crunchers believe that a whopping 6.8M existing homes will close next year, marking the biggest one-year gain in sales (nearly 22%!) since the early 1980’s.

Jeff Tucker is a Senior Economist at Zillow Research where he studies the causes and consequences of changing supply in the housing market. On this episode of Industry Relations, Jeff joins Rob and Greg to discuss the inputs his team used to make its predictions for 2021 and describe how current growth differs from what we saw at the height of the bubble in 2005.

Jeff offers insight around the demographics of who’s buying and selling homes right now, sharing his take on why the low millennial marriage rate may not impact the housing market as much as we think and how feasible it is for young, working-class Americans to afford home ownership. Listen in to understand how COVID facilitated the single-family home inventory crash and get an economist’s perspective on why the housing market will stay hot through 2021.

What’s Discussed:  

The inputs Jeff’s team used to predict that 6.8M existing homes will close in 2021

How current growth differs from what we saw at the height of the bubble in 2005

The decrease in share of income spent on mortgages since 2018

Why the iBuyer’s mission to create a frictionless experience is so important moving forward

Jeff’s insight around the demographics of who’s buying and selling homes

The distinction between family and household formation 

Why the low millennial marriage rate may or may not impact the housing market

How COVID facilitated a single-family home inventory crash

Why Jeff sees appreciation slowing down by the end of 2021

Jeff’s take on the feasibility of home ownership for working-class millennials

How the skyrocketing US money supply might impact the real estate market

Connect with Jeff:

Zillow Research

Jeff at Zillow

Jeff on Twitter

Connect with Rob and Greg: 

Rob’s Website

Greg’s Website

Resources:

Lone Wolf Technologies

Zillow’s Forecast for 2021

NAR Data on Single Women Home Buyers

Pew Research on Millennials & Marriage

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