Just A Bit of Real Estate Related News to Share

So, if you read my blog frequently enough, you know that I read a ton of stuff that's Real Estate related....I mean a ton. I get 3 emails a day of which 2 of them have about 5-6 articles daily. So, that's about a dozen articles every day that I read. Well, I try to read. If I don't see anything new or interesting, I save in a folder on my desktop.

One of the latest news is Zillow. They have been grabbing (aka, stealing) our MLS data for way too many years. They had a huge glitch at the beginning of the year with agent sales information. I've told my peeps for years to use a different platform as they have too many errors. Easy to use, but too many errors. 

There is a program in our MLS for scheduling showing appointments. I never use it for my listings, I think I'm just a bit too controlling to have a 2nd party involved in taking care of my peeps. Zillow just bought this program, I think it was for 500 MILLION dollars, yes, it was. I googled it while typing this post! 500 Million Dollars for a showing scheduling program called ShowingTime.

Fine, let them buy it, but clients beware.....YOUR info is frequently plugged into that ShowingTime program. I never have, but some agents do. I don't think anyone needs my clients info except me. But, some have provided ShowingTime with your info....and, now? Well, now Zillow has allllll that data.

If you are a regular Zillow troller, you know they stalk you the moment you search something...just like every other dang website. But, now you're probably seeing a boatload of flashy things about them buying your house, or selling your house, or any number of things to get you to work directly with Zillow instead of  the Realtor you would normally choose.

Whatever, you know me, you don't know whoever the heck Zillow has. Just keeping you informed and suggesting again, stay off Zillow.

Now, onto the next bit of news to share. The price of lumber. Eeeeeeck. Which then reflects on the price of new home construction.....double Eeeeeeck.

I had a desk custom built for me, the artists desk....and I love it. The cabinet builder told us upon delivery that he couldn't possibly do another one for someone at the same price he did for us as building materials...aka lumber....had skyrocketed.

Fast forward to another email article drip......

And, the word about how expensive lumber is, 80% coming from Canada, and that due to COVID-19 lumber mill shut-downs, wood to build new homes (and artists tables) is scarce and crazy expensive.

On this note, it's just a 'Be Prepared' for the cost of new housing to be high and the number of new housing tracks to be limited or slowly built until we can get through the Pandemic and get more people back to work. 

I know this will make some people happy, the slowness part. But, until we get more homes, and new construction is a great way to get new homes, we will continue to have higher than normal appreciation on housing....and that isn't great for many people, low interest rates or not.

There ya go. Stay off Zillow, and knowledge that we are going to remain in a weird housing market until the Pandemic is over and/or COVID-19 is manageable.

~ Lauren Witz Greber ~ Witz Real Estate ~ www.KeepYourWitz.com ~ 

~ Lauren@KeepYourWitz.com ~ (661) 313-5470 ~