Real Estate Blog - CNBC Features ActiveRain Member and Zillow's COO

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CNBC Features ActiveRain Member and Zillow's COO - Spencer Rascoff

CNBC Features ActiveRain Member and Zillow's COO - Spencer Rascoff

The Discussion is the Country's Housing Market. CNBC - "One Year Later" focuses on "Hashing Out Housing" with guests Spencer Rascoff from Zillow, Armando Falcon from Falcon Capital Advisors, and Dr. Susan Wachter from Wharton Business School. The Good news, the Real Estate rate of decline is slowing, and the Boston Market appears to have hit bottom. What will it take and when will the Market be "Normal" again? What will that look like? A few hurdles ahead but the outlook is promising, it will be an "L" shaped recovery.

So How is YOUR Market Doing?

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Posted by Brad Andersohn ~ Community Manager on 09/17/2009 08:51 AM

Comments (43)

Real Estate Market in the ActiveRain Channel

cnbc, zillow, spencer rascoff, in the news

Originally posted at: Club Chaos Agents - All Things Hollish, Wacked, and Jacked: CNBC Features ActiveRain Member and Zillow's COO - Spencer Rascoff

Post is included in group: Realtors®
Post is included in group: POSITIVE ATTITUDE for the Weary Soul
Post is included in group: Out Of The Box!
Post is included in group: It's all about them (ThemThem)
Post is included in group: International Real Estate

43 Comments on CNBC Features ActiveRain Member and Zillow's COO - Spencer Rascoff

SEP

Pretty interesting Brad.....I need to listen to the rest later when I return....nice pod cast.

Hello Brad, with what we've been through in this industry I tend to agree we are on the long road to recovery. Thanks! John

John - The "L"ong road to recovery is the future we are all anticipating and looking forward to. :-)

Spencer cleans up nice. :) Thanks for the post!

Brad - no time to listen now but sounds intriguing, even more so have lived in Boston recently. We have a ways to go, despite seeing some improvements, I think. Lots of 5 and 7 ARMs that still need to adjust for one. And who knows how many homes the bannks are sitting on right now. But with more folks buying a great rates....

Jeff

Awesome and very cool... Looking forward to the improvements because this market really whomps... :->

interesting video - but we never hear news talk about the fact that markets are local. Zillow does track a lot of info - but not sure their numbers are factual. As far as why did the private sector leave the market - because they are the ones that messed it up! And this bottoming out phase and the statement banks aren't lending - where does that statement come from? They still are just not as slap happy as before. And this glut of foreclosures that they mention - I've been hearing this for the past few years...

We never spiked (double digit appreciation) here in Raleigh, NC we averaged 3-5% appreciation all along. We'll see how things start to even out across the rest of the country. In the meantime there are still real estate transaction happening - people needed larger homes, or downsizing, or being transferred. That's what drives real estate.

Pamela

Interesting... I it does not seem certain that all markets are doing well.. however, in So. NH we are seeing some sign that the market may be stabliizing.. So far so good, but time will tell all.

Brad: I knew there was a reason I didn't watch the news. If I watched this stuff everyday I'd be cowering under my desk instead of having a really great year. Banks are lending money, but to qualified buyers. Spencer was the only one on the panel not painting with the sweeping brush of "We're all doomed." Of course, that's probably because he is a member of the greatest real estate community in our Country. :)

Brad..It is a very interesting broadcast..Let's see what the future has to bring..Hopefully we will see an upswing in 2010.. I hope everyone has taken the time to contact their congressman to vote for the $8000 tax credit..Thanks for the info

HELPFULHANNAH

"interesting video - but we never hear news talk about the fact that markets are local."

Lee & Pam - exactly why members on AR post Hyper-Local RE content in their "local" communities and neighborhoods.

You know what they say, "If you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own!" Blogging is a great way. :-)

Brad, I will bookmark for later, I hate to mentally think 'Doom" other wise it is hard to stay focused. I don't listen to the news much either, everyday it's 'doom and gloom'. I tell my cleints not to listen while selling their homes. I try to keep a positive atittude. I got layed off from a company years ago and that was hard enough. I will listen to to video later, I want to hear 'one yaer later' what was said, it is important to be informed

Brad, We are extremely fortunate in the Houston area. We don't have as high a rate of foreclosures and we have seen some positive numbers. Our average home price rose to $213,396 for August 09 - which is the third highest of the year.

Looks like most of us are in the same boat... have to come back and listen later =/ Sry. I picked up on one thing while reading though. So many people ask when things will be "normal" again. Well what the heck is a "normal" real estate market? "Normal" is constant fluctuation! I always wonder what they're thinking when they ask that.... hmm... Perhaps I should blog my thoughts =P

Brad, We are starting to see some improvement in our market. Like most markets we could always use more strength tho.

Thanks for sharing- So here my synopsis: Some Glimmers of Hope, Bottom out face, need to see recovery, Global view, slow recovery, and lots of people waiting on the side line - outlook 3-5 years, I better close my ear's, decided to be upbeat today :-)

Normal is not constant fluctuation. Normal is just what the COO of Zillow says in this video: 2-3% per year --

compounded on today's value (or the bottom-out value, take your pick) -- not compounded on 2006 or 2007 values.

It's going to be a long slow climb. Normal is clearly not 2004-2006 appreciation: "Ain't never gonna happen agin!"

But Zollow's data is out to lunch. The Case-Shiller Index (for June) says prices have turned in 18 of the 20 largest markets.

The reason we need to see an extension of the $8000 tax credit IS the gloomy possibilities described in this video.

Great information, and for once, they gave examples of different areas, and didn't speak in general terms across the board, as many areas aren't seeing declines like they talk about.

Blog-N-Roll Brad...

What bothers me the most about our market is how many people have been caught up the mess. We're watching lives being destroyed. I find it all very sad. I'd say more but I don't do sad very well :(

TLW...ROAR!

For Las Vegas, I would agree with Spencer that the rate of decline has slowed ... but we still haven't seen the bottom yet. It's going to be at least 12-18 months before we can consider that this market is behind us.

OMG, who featured this? I didn't even get to tell Spencer I posted this yet!! :-O

Good, Bad or indifferent, each market is what each market is. Since Real Estate is Local, it will be different everywhere.

The best news is yet to come, and I'm banking on it coming from our AR members that will be reporting from their areas. :-))

Brad,

Those guys do make sense. There has been talk about all these different-shaped letters depicting any recovery. At this point, we just want a recovery to begin, the letter can come in any shape.

The market seems to be getting better here. We even had notice in the paper the other day that prices are up 2%.

Thats great, thanks for the post, and I like CNBC too!

Congratulations to Spencer... This is great that he recieved the feature !

SEP

The "New Normal" 2 to 3% yearly growth. . encouraging buyers to stay home longer.

Powerful . .

Bad news if your mortgage is thousands underwater.

Could be year 2020 before you may break even.

Brad, thanks for the heads up on this one. Very interesting and listening to it now.

Brad:

You can learn a lot from watching CNBC. I have been doing it for years.

"The Boston Market is bottoming out" - from their mouths to God's ears. I just hope it takes. It's really too soon to know.

Greeat Video Brad....Thanks

Hi everyone,

Spencer here.

Thanks for the kind comments. I wanted to respond to one point, which I definitely agree with -- all real estate is local. Unfortuantely though, the media likes to focus on national statistics. But there's no doubt that what really matters is how your particular micro-market is performing.

At Zillow, we recently launched an enormous amount of free data on local markets, all available in the "Local Info" tab of the site. For example, here is the Seattle real estate info page and here is the Los Angeles home values information. Sara Bonert wrote a great post here on AR talking about how real estate professionals can use that data to get an edge, and another great post on how to put the data into widgets for your website.

Another cool thing about the local data -- avaialable to the neighborhood level -- is that it can all be downloaded into excel for you to play with on your website. Also very cool is the fact that you can embed any graph onto a blog post. Check out the graph here and click on "embed" in the upper right. This is a great way to get material for you to write consumer-facing blog posts.

Enjoy!

Spencer - thanks for stopping by to comment, I meant to send you a quick email announcement that I had posted this, but before you know it, comments were coming in and it got featured. Thanks for the links, I'll check them out. It's been nice to hear from the other members as to what's going on in their individual markets. My email inbox assumed the "busy" position today. :-)

Assume...

I had to bite my tongue on that one. Ouch :)

TLW...ROAR!

TLW - Better you than me!! lol~ AND WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR HEAD???

I don't know...

BB redesigned me. I have my head everywhere accept in a comment stream. He showed me how to do it myself. But I don't feel like messing with it right now. It frustrates me and I don't want to deal with the frustration because...Tomorrow is a big day around here. The Son is coming home. Semper Fi Baby. Semper Fi :)

TLW...ROAR!

I think the video was right on in terms of what will happen in most of the country. A very slow recovery, followed by an appreciation of 2-4% per year. I think that market will be a wonderful one to work in and I look forward to something a little more stable.

Spencer, It was nice meeting you at Rebar camp in Seattle.

As someone I respect likes to say, it's going to take an army of educated, experienced Realtors to save the housing market. I'm thinkin' we have a pretty educated army around here!

Zillow keeps track of housing values! The fact that people put so much stake into Zillow amazes me. Don't give them this podium. Their zestimates make people feel they know what they are talking about and these things can be so off. Sometimes I have to fight to undo all this "zillow smarts".

National news should always start by saying markets are local, markets are local, markets are local.

Thanks for posting this. It is indeed a crazy world we live in right now. AR is the cure to the crazies!

John - it's ok to speak your mind here, no need to delete your comments. I posted this to try and get a feel of the "Local" markets as posed by my question below the video... So How is YOUR Market Doing? Your statement " Personally, I am often much more interested in what some agent from a small town in Iowa is thinking and doing," was exactly what I was looking for in these comments as well. So how is the market in your area of Florida?" I noticed your last post titled "For 3 straight weeks Average Mortage Interest Rates Drop." This sounds like a good thing no? Real Estate markets are definitely local. Guys across the bridge from me are doing ok, while we lost our a$$ in this market. I bought at the high point of the market so any signs of recovery, L shaped or not and at 3% a year is just fine with me. Let's get that ball rollin!! :-)

SEP

I think it feels better to some but we have another wave of "special" loans hitting. It will be affecting many more home owners. I think we have a long way to go.

We're seeing improvements here mainly due to the first time homebuyers tax incentive, but the huge inventory of new homes (and C-11 builders) still hovers like a dark cloud, creating so many foreclosures. Interesting video...I try to keep looking at the brighter side, & appreciate encouraging and inspiring facts and perspectives.

SEP

Hi Brad! As much CNBC as my hubby watches, I'm surprised that he didn't alert me to this vid already! Thanks for sharing.

My perspective on it is, as inaccurate as Zillow's zestimates can be sometimes, they truly DO have their fingers on the pulse of the LOCAL real estate markets-- more than the other two commentators. Like Pam in Raleigh, our appreciation was running in the single digits for years so, we didn't quite have the bubble that other markets had. Therefore we're 'recovering' a bit quicker than most. However, I much prefer the "U" or the "V" as opposed to that "L"--that's for SURE!

I think the national spokespeople tend to alarm those markets who are not suffering as much by lumping all markets together and reporting 'averages' which give a false negative to my market and even a false positive to the markets who are truly still bottoming. It's very frustrating to continuously have to explain their errors in reporting--and even when we do, we are not taken seriously because some 'professor' of economics or real estate knows more about the 'market' than lowly real estate agents know about their own local markets!

OH, and Spencer DOES clean up nicely!! GREAT job Spencer!

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