Redfin FINALLY GIves Up and Says It Does Not Know Where the Market is Headed

For months Redfin has been a modern-day chicken little screaming that the market was going to crash. Finally, this week, they give up and basically admit that they have no idea where the market is going

Before we get into that, let's, as always, start with the data.

Mortgage rates continue their steady 6-7% bandwidth, closing this week slightly down again at 6.5%, about the same as they have trended most of this year.

Inventory: nationally, housing stock continues at record lows for periods other than during the pandemic and has declined to match the rates of 2021. As I have repeatedly said, as long as inventory is low, prices cannot go down much.

Locally, in Los Angeles, the market grew slightly in the direction of a seller's market to a market action index of 44, higher than the last few months' rating of 43.

Zillow continues its headline-baiting, this week while looking for click-bait on the topic of a potential US credit default by shouting "A debt ceiling default would send the U.S. housing market back into a deep freeze."

Wow, that sounds ominous! Of course, since Zillow puts that nonsense on their website it allows other press to carry that story as "Zillow says" this nonsense.  Of course, these are the same press sources where Zillow places ads, so they are all working together. 

But I love how in the Zillow subtitle it says "A debt default is very unlikely" but you have to go behind the paywall at Fortune to find that out. Who pays for Fortune online? 

Business Insider jumps into the headline click-bait with their headline this week "Real estate agents are tacking ludicrous 'junk fees' on to every home purchase."

EVERY transaction? Well, I don't charge any "junk fees" on my transactions, so I know its not true, and, frankly, I rarely see any fees other than a commission charged by a real estate agent on closing statements, so frankly I do not see such practices as even common. The only source for this article seems to be Stephen Brobeck, a career political hack whose entire career has been in academic or government jobs, with no actual experience in the industry he is disparaging. Of course, the organization he is a "senior fellow" with is a non-profit that gets membership fees by getting consumers all excited and joining their organization to protect consumers.

Redfin contributes its best effort to date to get attention by offering the nonsense "Housing Market Update: It’s Hot And It’s Cold."

OK, how can anything be hot AND cold? Water cannot be hot AND cold, it's one or the other. Room temperatures cannot be 2 readings, it is one temperature per reading. Similarly, the real estate market is what it is, and in our case, it is not just varying by region, but it is both mixed and normal. Now, Redfin won't get clicks if their headline was "Real Estate Market is Normal," which explains this effort.

But the award this week for the worst news story goes to our local Los Angeles TV Channel 9 KCAL with their story detailing the massive exodus out of Los Angeles.

You can watch the video, but the highlight includes stating the reason people are leaving is all the real estate signs, and then the reason is the pandemic, as though the pandemic uniquely hit Los Angeles by bypassing other states where Los Angelinos are moving.
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Bill Gross, The LAProbate Expert
I am a real estate broker in Los Angeles, CA focused on probate real estate and the leader of a team of over 1,100 agents nationally probate experts.

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