Real Estate Predictions 2021 with Daryl Fairweather, PhD, Redfin #ddre27

Daryl Fairweather is the chief economist of @Redfin. Prior to joining Redfin, she was a senior economist at Amazon working on problems related to employee engagement and managing a team of analysts. During the housing crisis, Daryl worked as a researcher at the Boston Fed studying why homeowners entered foreclosure. This week, we cover migration trends, what buyers are looking for in a new city, which pandemic real estate trends (like work from home) are here to stay, and what real estate professionals should know about trends in 2021.

Get your questions answered on the upcoming show by posting your questions in our community: https://bit.ly/ddre-27

00:00 The Data Driven Real Estate Podcast Welcomes Daryl Fairweather, PhD, Chief Economist of Redfin
00:59 What is Redfin and Redfin Concierge?
04:05 Foreclosure crisis in 2021?
05:25 COVID-related migration and real estate prices
12:14 What real estate trends in 2020 were surprising?
13:24 What is behavioral economics?
19:23 Gen Z and Y trends in real estate?
24:06 Is work from home the new normal?
29:50 What are people looking for when they move to a new city?
35:43 Are there any specific criteria that people look for when buying a home?
37:03 What real estate trends should we expect in 2021? Affordability? Interest rates?
39:56 Cities are going to invest in culture to keep people from moving?
41:22 Does lower interest rates increase home affordability?
45:35 Baby Boomer real estate trends?
49:07 Will the US mimic Japan on inflation and interest rates?

Episode Transcript

Aaron Norris (00:07):
Welcome back to the Data Driven Real Estate
Podcast, the podcast for realestate professionals dedicated
to driving business using data.
I'm Aaron Norris along with co-host Sean O'Toole of
PropertyRadar, and this week onepisode 27. We've got Dr. Daryl
Fairweather, Chief Economist ofRedfin. I've been following her
work on Twitter for some time,and she always brings a very
interesting nuance to the partywhen it comes to the real estate
economist game. She's got aninteresting background with the

(00:28):
Boston Fed during theforeclosure crisis. She worked
at Amazon. And now working withRedfin, she studies consumer
behavior on top of real estatetrends. So, this week, we talk
about COVID related trends andwhat's sticky, a different
demographics. And differentgenerations are handling the
pandemic, where they're movingto, what's popular, what's not,
a trends in home ownership, andeven what they're buying, and

(00:49):
then other trends that sheexpects to see in 2021 and
beyond that, and much more.
Don't miss this week's show.
Thank you for joining us,Darryl.
It's so nice to have you on theshow. For people who are not
familiar with Redfin, how do youdescribe it?

Daryl Fairweather (01:06):
It's a technology driven real estate
brokerage. So, most peopleprobably know Redfin, from our
website, you can go and look atall the listings that are
available. But we also have afull brokerage with agents to
help you buy or sell a home. Andwe use technology to make that
process go a whole lot smoother.
And we're also trying to be theone stop shop for real estate.

(01:26):
So, we have a mortgage company,we have a title company. So,
pretty soon it's going to beeverything related to buying or
selling a home you'd be able todo with Redfin.

Aaron Norris (01:36):
Any other, while we're here any other category
that is on the horizon that wedon't know about? I don't know
there's a lot of pieces.

Daryl Fairweather (01:47):
Um, nothing that I can disclose. Although I
think that we've I thinkeverything that's out there.
We've already been talkingabout. So, the lesser known
things that we do, though, isRedfin Concierge, like I'm
selling my home right now withRedfin Concierge. And so, I have
a Redfin Concierge agent,helping organize all the work
that needs to be done on thehome. I'm remodeling the

(02:07):
kitchen, the bathroom, we evenknocked down a wall between the
kitchen and the dining room. So,although like the contractor is
its own company, Redfin ishelping coordinate all that
work. So, I don't have to lift afinger.

Sean O'Toole (02:20):
How does that work financially? Does that, does the
money come out of the close ofescrow or do you have to pay for
that up front or?

Daryl Fairweather (02:28):
So, Redfin Concierge charge instead of one
or one and a half percent, it'stwo or two and a half percent,
depending on whether you'rebuying and selling with us. And
that extra 1% pays for thebasics, like new paints, light
landscaping, cleaning, staging,and then everything on top of

(02:48):
that is out of pocket. So, I'mpaying up front for the big work
that's being done.

Aaron Norris (02:53):
Interesting. I didn't know about that.

Sean O'Toole (02:55):
I didn't know about that at all. Yeah.

Aaron Norris (02:58):
Interesting, juicy stuff. Okay. And then, your
journey into the real estatespace. Sean and I were just
talking about your bio. You're,in 2009 you were with the Boston
Fed for a while, right?

Daryl Fairweather (03:10):
Yes. So, this was at the peak of the
foreclosure crisis, I was doingresearch on behavioral
economics, specifically on thebehavioral reasons why people
entered into foreclosure. Thatwas like, I think the big
economic revelation of the lastfinancial crisis was that
economists didn't really see itcoming. They didn't predict that
people would get so caught upand appreciation and valuation

(03:34):
of homes, that they would kindof forego rationality. So, we
want to understand why peoplegot involved in these mortgages
that they couldn't end uppaying. So, I would call up
homeowners and ask them a wholeslew of questions about the
financial situation about theterms of their mortgage, trying
to see if they understood theterms of their mortgage, ask

(03:54):
them some like behavioralquestions like would you rather
have $10 today, or $15 in ayear, things like that, to try
to figure out what exactlyhappened?

Sean O'Toole (04:05):
Any big, I mean, this was quite a while ago, this
is back in 2009. And right, itwas basically like an
internship. So, obviously,you've done a lot of things
since then because we, you know,got our start in foreclosures.
It's particularly interesting tous. So, if you don't mind, I'd
love if you came away with anybig conclusions or from that we

(04:28):
just touched on a little more.

Daryl Fairweather (04:29):
Yeah, there were two big reasons that people
end up on the foreclosure. Onewas that they just didn't think
that home prices could go down.
I mean, home prices have beengoing up for so long. They just
couldn't imagine a situationwhere home prices will go down
by as much as they did. And theydidn't go down quite a lot. It
was more than I think anybodywas expecting. And then the
second reason was people hadlike a crisis on top of that, so

(04:50):
it wasn't enough for homebuyersto go down because you could
keep paying your mortgage if youstill had a job. But a lot of
people they lost their jobs. Andthey had like a medical crisis
or they got divorced, or therewas some other life circumstance
where they couldn't pay theirmortgage at the same time that
their home was going down invalue. And that's why they would
end up in foreclosure.

Sean O'Toole (05:12):
Interesting. Okay.

Aaron Norris (05:14):
Well, some questions that people are
feeling in some markets becauseof sort of COVID migrations and
prices doing some things, itjust feels very similar, so.

Daryl Fairweather (05:24):
It's really not, though.

Aaron Norris (05:25):
It's not, it's not. So, let's talk about that.
Let's just jump into it. Whynot? Why, how is this time in
your opinion so different thanlast time?

Daryl Fairweather (05:33):
It's really about just the fundamentals of
supply and demand. Right nowthere is more demand than there
is supply and that's why pricesare going up so high. And people
have a lot of equity in theirhomes, people have, the price
have been going up for quite awhile people have been paying
off their loans and the kinds ofpeople who got loans since the

(05:53):
last foreclosure crisis, I'vehad really good credit, and are
just the kind of people whoaren't using their homes as
piggy banks. So, even if priceswere to go down, most people
have a really good cushion. Andwe also don't think that prices
are going to go down becausethere is this housing shortage.
Even in a market like SanFrancisco where there's a ton of
new listings today in the marketand people are leaving, prices

(06:15):
haven't collapsed. Prices arepretty steady. I mean, they're
down maybe like 1% from lastyear in certain areas, but
nothing like a crash.

Aaron Norris (06:22):
Yeah.

Sean O'Toole (06:23):
There wasn't, there wasn't an excess housing
supply in 2006, 2007, eitherreally, right. It's not like
population and number of housinghas changed that much from that
period of time, or do you feellike it has.

Daryl Fairweather (06:36):
There was an excess in certain places. So,
there was over development, andlike, the suburbs of cities like
Phoenix or Las Vegas, builderswere kind of getting overzealous
and how much they could buildand what prices they thought
they could get for them. So,that did contribute to supply. I
mean, it didn't contribute tothere being so much supply, that
everyone had a house to live andwe definitely never reached that

(06:58):
point. But, you know, there wasa bit of overbuilding. And then
the other point is just that theprice growth back then, really
was based on, what's the word?
Belief, the prices will keepgoing up basically speculation.
Right now, the prices aren'tbeing driven up by speculation,
it's not like we're seeing atime of investors trying to flip

(07:19):
houses the way that they wereback then just based on the idea
that prices had to keep goingup, and they can make their
money back.

Sean O'Toole (07:28):
So, I mean, there is a little lower percentage of
flippers today than then butflippers weren't a very large
part of the market, even then, Ithink peaked at around five or
6% right. So, so, in terms of,you know, like, in my local town
here of Truckee, we've seenprices at the low end, increase

(07:52):
almost 50% since the start ofCOVID. And you know, that feels
a little irrational, too.

Daryl Fairweather (08:03):
Yeah, I think, Truckee is probably a
good example of a place wherethere may be speculation based
on how many people are leaving aplace like San Francisco for a
more rural place, like Truckeeand people may be getting ahead
of themselves. I think what youmay see happening is that there
will be a couple of years ofreally fast price growth, and
then a couple of years of reallyslow price growth, maybe even

(08:23):
slight price declines. But don'tthink that prices will fall like
below where they were last year,for example, it just might be
that they shoot up and then theykind of stabilize. I think
Truckee is also interesting,because it's in a very fire
prone region. And that'ssomething that also worries me
is that people aren't takinginto account these long term

(08:44):
risks of housing and housing asa long term asset.

Aaron Norris (08:51):
Do you get a sense that we'll have like a buyer's
remorse phase, like when peopleexperience their first winters
in new markets, or they decidethey hit the summer for the
first time in Florida? Andyou're like, What do you mean,
this is humidity I've neverexperienced, we're gonna have
like a great rethinking 2021?

Daryl Fairweather (09:11):
It's possible, I think that there
will be a group of people whoare very happy with their moves
and never want to go back. Andthere may be some people who
maybe got ahead of themselves.
But I think overall, the trendhas been for a long time, people
leaving expensive cities formore affordable southern cities
like Miami or Austin, and thispandemic has accelerated that.

(09:32):
So, the fundamental reasons thatpeople are leaving expensive
cities are going to be therelong after the pandemic.

Sean O'Toole (09:41):
What's the behavioral like, you know, you
hear that that piece a lot,right, that a lot of people are
leaving this place for thatplace. But the places that
they're leaving really aren'tdeclining in value. It's not
like there's a big declines inpopulation, big declines in
prices in these places thatthey're leaving, right?
Everybody says, everybody'slike, leaving California, yet

(10:01):
California prices are prettymuch up across the board, you
know, condos in San Franciscoare a little soft. But you know,
it's not like people left. Andso what's, what's the behaviors?
What, what's happening tofill... those people are
leaving. So, obviously somepeople are leaving, but other
people are coming or can youexplain that? Or do you have
some thoughts on that?

Daryl Fairweather (10:22):
Well, in some of these expensive California
cities for a long time, therehasn't been enough development
to keep up with demand. So,people can leave and go buy
homes, other places, and you'llstill have people leftover to
fill all the houses that arethere, just because there wasn't
enough, there weren't a house tobegin with, in terms of the
reasons why people are leaving,like taxes are definitely

(10:45):
driving people away fromCalifornia. And just the very,
the cost of housing, like maybepeople who may have been
longtime renters. And we'rereally hoping to become
homeowners one day just gave upon the idea of becoming
homeowners in expensive citiesand are looking to buy homes in
places like Salt Lake or LasVegas.

Sean O'Toole (11:02):
Right, right. You talk to people in Phoenix and
Salt Lake and I just saw alittle meme in California that
said, in Texas, and I'm gonnaforget it exactly. But it was
basically like, you know,Californians please quarantine
in place and stop coming. Andso, you know, but what's

(11:27):
interesting is, is, you know,you hear about all these places,
it's like, it's California, likesome sort of crazy, you know,
people generating machine thatjust pushes people out
elsewhere, but it's not droppingin population. I mean, it's not
growing as fast, but it's notdropping in population, it's
just hard to believe it can havethis much outflow and this much
impact in so many places, andwithout a real decline.

Daryl Fairweather (11:51):
Well, California is an immigration
hub, it's a port of entry forpeople coming from all around
the world. So, a lot of peoplewho are leaving are US citizens,
and then they get replaced byforeigners. So, that's one of
the reasons that California'spopulation hasn't been declining
despite how many people areleaving, they just attract
people from all over the world.

Aaron Norris (12:14):
Are you looking at 2020? Is there anything that
surprised you about

Sean O'Toole (12:18):
2021?

Aaron Norris (12:19):
Well, with 2020?
Does the COVID is there? Isthere anything that has
surprised you about thebehavioral side of how we've
handled a pandemic, specificallywhen it comes to real estate?

Daryl Fairweather (12:34):
Um, I think what surprised me the most is
how quickly everyone has, haschanged their whole life plans.
Like, I mean, I have an exampleof somebody who moved during the
pandemic, but I think part of ithas to do with how long it's
lasted, it was just gonna, if itwould just happen for a couple
months, I don't think peoplewould have like, reorganize

(12:56):
their whole lives around it. Butthe pandemic has, I think,
proven to people, there arealternate ways to live, you can
work from home and be productiveworker, those people have
learned to value being close tofamily. So, I think it's just
revealed a lot of people'spreferences that they didn't
know even were there becausethey never had the option to

(13:16):
explore them. And that hascaused a lot of people to just
reassess their lives, includingwhere they live.

Sean O'Toole (13:25):
I think we jump right in here. And I actually we
talked about like taking a stepback first, and you're a
behavioral economics, economist.
And that's kind of why we'reasking some of the questions
we're asking. But let's justtake a step back for a second
for the for the folks listeningin and talk to us about
behavioral economics, and youknow, how that might be

(13:47):
different and how you might viewthe world differently than, you
know, some other economists atsimilar companies, you know,
that don't come from thebehavioral economics side of
things?

Daryl Fairweather (14:05):
Sure. So, the basic difference is that
behavioral economists assumethat people are prone to biases,
that they have the psychologicalfactors that lead them to make
decisions that may not be intheir best interest. So, when I
look at things like buying ahome, for example, instead of
just looking at the price, orhow much money a person will

(14:26):
make, I look at things like whatare the psychological factors
leading someone to buy a home.
Are they buying a home, becausethey have this belief that
buying home is a sign ofbecoming an adult which exists I
think, in American society, orthey're selling a home, are they
like, attached to their home andkind of an irrational way where
they think the value of theirhome is going to be more

(14:48):
valuable than a very similarhome next door. So, I think
especially because buying andselling a home is something that
people only do once maybe twicein their whole lifetimes. People
are prone to make mistakes. AndI found that really interesting
because it's the most, one ofthe most important financial
decisions that people make. Andthey just don't get very much
practice at it.

Sean O'Toole (15:10):
One of the things just among like, my personal
millennial friends that I'mfinding interesting is that when
they decide to have kids, theydecide they have to have a home
before they can have kids like,like, owning a home is a
requirement of having children.
Like, it would be an example ofa behavioral, right?

Daryl Fairweather (15:29):
If you look at the way that homeownership
has been trending and how thebirth rate has been trending in
the US, they do seem to followeach other that people are, are
having to delay both. And it maybe that, yeah, buying a home is
a prerequisite for a lot ofpeople to having kids, which
definitely isn't. And that's, Ithink, an American thing.

Sean O'Toole (15:50):
Right, it's a belief. Yeah, so, belief thing
rather than a requirement forsure. Yeah, okay. So, I think
that's just a good, a goodpiece. And you spend some time
working, you know, and actuallylooking at behaviors within
Amazon, if I'm right. And, andusing that, not just for looking

(16:13):
at markets and real estate andthings like that, but also how
to, like, better manage peopleand processes too so it has a
wide area of applicabilitybesides just economic outcome.

Daryl Fairweather (16:27):
Yes, behavioral economics basically
applies any situation where, youknow, you think that people are
going to follow one behavior.
And they don't, you can probablyanalyze that using behavioral
economics. But Amazon, I waslooking, in particular, how to
increase employee engagement.
There was this issue wherebasically, they had increased

(16:47):
performance of employees, butthey were noticing that there
was pretty high attrition, andthey wanted to figure out why
that was and how to basicallymake their employees happier.
So, that was a pretty fun jobjust to make employees happier.

Sean O'Toole (17:00):
Cool. So, you get you get better performance out
of folks. But maybe you burnthem out and you lose them. So,
it doesn't really do any good inthe long run. And so how do you.

Daryl Fairweather (17:07):
Yeah, it's a very intuitive thing. I think
most people to understand that,you know, happier workers are
more productive. But sometimespeople need to see that in black
and white to actually makechanges in that direction.

Sean O'Toole (17:19):
So, can you reduce that to a formula?

Daryl Fairweather (17:22):
I did.

Sean O'Toole (17:24):
I thought maybe.
Yeah.

Daryl Fairweather (17:25):
That's, I think that's proprietary.

Sean O'Toole (17:28):
Okay, we don't get to see the math behind it. All
right. I think with thatbackground, let's keep going.
Sorry Aaron.

Aaron Norris (17:35):
All right. Well, I follow you on Twitter, and I
enjoy your perspective. Andmaybe it is that behavioral
side, it always just seems alittle bit different than some I
follow a lot of real estateeconomists. What keeps you
excited about this industry,real estate sort of seems so
dry?

Daryl Fairweather (17:52):
Like I said, I think it's, it's like the most
important decision that mostpeople will make in terms of
their finances, and they don'thave a lot of information going
into it. So, it's just thisreally interesting case study
and economics and behavioraleconomics in particular, where
you can really see the wholeeconomy and just this decision
of whether and when to buy ahome or to sell a home.

Aaron Norris (18:14):
Does Redfin lean on you? I mean, with that
perspective, everything from aweb site designed to the process
of paperwork. I mean, there's somuch that can be applied here.
Do they lean on you for thatkind of insight into the data
and the process?

Daryl Fairweather (18:30):
Yes. And my team, I don't do it all. I have
a team of economists, and we getasked quite a bit to weigh in on
some of these economic issuesthat Redfin faces.

Aaron Norris (18:42):
Interesting. Can you share any of the maybe the
insights that you bring to thetable that I don't know people
wouldn't think about?

Daryl Fairweather (18:52):
One thing that comes up a lot is when we
try to understand how much ofRedfin's growth is basically
tail winds or headwinds from thegreater housing market. So,
we'll come in and try to figureout you know, how, where is the
housing market headed relativeto where Redfin is, what can we
attribute to the initiativesthat Redfin has done versus just
what's going on in the housingmarket.

Aaron Norris (19:13):
Interesting.
Because Redfin is definitely oneof the top 15 Real Estate
websites in the country. I'vebeen obsessed with iBuying for
years. And I always have verymuch admire the Zillow and
Redfin just because you had suchonline presence and everything
from the web design and thecustomer trusting, the data that
you provide on the website fromthe comparable sales to price.

(19:34):
It's just, it's been veryinteresting to watch. And I was
just curious how much involvedwith what you do it could you
can touch so many pieces of thebusiness, which is fun. Real
estate is ripe for disruptiontoo, how much demand are you
seeing from Gen Z and Y enteringto the real estate space pushing
companies to become more digitalor to be a lot more consumer

(19:57):
focused in an industry thatdoesn't have, doesn't have the
best reputation for beingconsumer friendly, we'll put it
that way.

Daryl Fairweather (20:07):
Gen Y is millennials, right? They are a
very large growing part of thehome buying market, there's
going to be this wave of homebuying demand coming from
millennials reaching home buyingage, now they're getting ready
to have kids and they think theyneed to buy a home beforehand.
So, it's definitely somethingthat we think about, like, in

(20:27):
terms of building a product anda service that millennials will
like, and then Gen Z, on top ofthat, when they come down the
pipeline and are ready to buyhomes, I think that customers
are going to come to expect alot more, a lot better user
experience. I mean, I justbought a home. And it was

(20:47):
remarkable how easy it was toget all my mortgage documents
uploaded this time versus when Ibought a home five years ago.
And I think that's whatcustomers are gonna come to
expect that you just go to onelanding page, you upload all the
stuff, you get a littlecheckmark that says whether it's
been approved or not, or it'sgone through underwriting or
not, and your agent can see itin the same spot, like that's
how it really should be.

Aaron Norris (21:09):
Yeah.

Sean O'Toole (21:10):
And so, I should know this, but where does Redfin
fall right now on the wholeiBuying side of things where you
know, that allow that person tosell their house before they
repurchase and, you know, smooththat part of not having to
juggle two transactions at once.
And you know, is there a visionthere that Redfin has and where
are they in on rolling that out?

Daryl Fairweather (21:34):
We have Redfin now. And we're in quite a
few markets. I don't have themoff the top of my head, but
we're all around the country.
And we know we're expanding. AndI think one of the differences
between Redfin and some of theseother iBuyers is that we want to
offer the home seller whateveroption works best for them. So,
we'll present both the iBuyingoption and the traditional
option, and the concierge optionand really let the seller decide

(21:58):
what fits their needs. And withone of the big challenges for a
lot of people is that since it'ssuch a seller's market, it can
be stressful to have to sell andbuy at the same time people
aren't willing to accept sellingcontingencies. So, iBuying
definitely has a place for somepeople.

Sean O'Toole (22:19):
It allows them to come in with an all cash offer,
because they have the knowledgethat they're sell, there, the
sales side will close for sure.

Daryl Fairweather (22:28):
Right, right.

Aaron Norris (22:29):
I like the concierge option. So, when the
consumer thinks that their homeis valued a lot more like,
'Well, let's bring in acontractor and see what it's
gonna take to get rid of your70s kitchen'.

Daryl Fairweather (22:40):
Yeah, well, for me, I mean, I have two, I
have a two and a half year oldand eight month old, and like I
just haven't been spending somuch work on my house. And yeah,
the idea of having a contractorand with two kids under two is
just like a nightmare. So, I washappy to just get out of the
house and leave it up to theconcierge agent.

Sean O'Toole (22:59):
So, you move first into your new place. And then
and then put the other one upfor sale after the fact. And
it'd be interesting, you know,one of the things that I haven't
seen, you know, much of yet iskind of that bridge financing
kind of solution, right? Like,'Hey, I'd like to get, I'd like
to list this on the market andget the full price but I still

(23:20):
need to go buy this other housefirst, I have this asset back
here'. That worst case is worthenough, you know, to you know,
if I've got the position and thedifference, like, it seems like,
you know, some options, therestill exists to give people the
best of both worlds.

Daryl Fairweather (23:38):
Yeah, I mean, I know bridge loans exists, I'm
not sure if they're going up ordown in popularity right now,
the big drawback I think, isthat people don't know what
their budget is going to be,right. So, if they take out this
bridge loan to buy a moreexpensive home than their
current home doesn't sell for asmuch as they thought it would.
They're on the hook for that.
So, I think it is a reallystressful thing. And with

(23:59):
iBuying at least you get thecertainty that this is going to
be the sale price.

Aaron Norris (24:06):
Has there been any research on, on consumers moving
to different markets? And ifthey're taking a chance? I mean,
will there work, is working fromhome sticky? Is this the new
normal? Or are they taking achance just crossing their
fingers hoping that they'removing and going to allow to
stay? And if not maybe look at anew job? I don't know. I haven't
seen any research on that.

Daryl Fairweather (24:27):
We're actually filling a survey on
that right now. Andpreliminarily, it looks like
most people believe that. Ifthey're working remote now
they'll be able to continue towork remotely. And that makes
sense just from an economicperspective. Like it only takes
a couple of employers, leadersto make the call that work from
home is allowed for them andother companies will follow suit

(24:49):
because if they don't they don'tremain competitive in the
landscape anymore. And it's alsothis advantageous I think to the
employer because they can hirepeople for a more affordable
salaries and more affordableplaces, they don't have to just
pay people to be able to affordto live close the office, I
think there are going to be someemployers who try to clock
people back. But people willkind of self sort based on their

(25:12):
own preferences. If you want togo the office, I'm sure you'll
be able to find an employer whowill want you there. And if you
don't get to find one, who willbe more flexible, especially if
you're in a high demand field.

Sean O'Toole (25:25):
I think the big stress there is on managers,
like I've been a remote, I'vemanaged people remotely for 20
years. And so, it's like, it'slike, you know, it's no
different, you know, pre stay athome and post at home for me,
like, you know, there were lesspeople in the office, you know,
but it made it really made nodifference. But for somebody
who's used to management bywandering around, boy, their

(25:48):
life changed a lot this year.

Daryl Fairweather (25:50):
Yeah. And I think they'll probably see a big
shift in their kinds of skills,you need to be a manager, or at
least have successful manager ofremote employees.

Sean O'Toole (25:58):
Yeah, no, I totally agree with that. And so,
the other side of that, right,we've got people predicting kind
of the, maybe the death ofcities, re-ruralization of
America is one thing that I talka lot about a lot. And what,
what's your outlook for citieson the other side, right, the
you know, we talked earlierabout people leaving those,

(26:20):
what's your thoughts there?

Daryl Fairweather (26:22):
I'm pretty optimistic for there are only
really two cities where we'reseeing more people leaving,
people leaving to a point thatit's, it's worrisome that San
Francisco and New York becausethey are the most expensive
cities, and a lot of people havebeen living there just because
they have to be close to theoffice. So, I think that's where
we're seeing the biggest exodusof people. But those two cities

(26:44):
are also like, very culturallyimportant. And once the once the
world opens up, again, peopleare going to want to, you know,
go to Broadway or go to museumsin San Francisco, they have a
lot to offer. So, I think whatthe cities will have to do is
pivot from being a basically anoffice space to being more of an
attractive for people who wantto live there for the lifestyle,

(27:07):
and also attract tourists,because I know tourism is dead
right now. But when things openup again, there gonna be plenty
of tourists who want to go visitSan Francisco and New York for
those, for those reasons,cultural reasons.

Sean O'Toole (27:19):
Yeah, agree. So, I also just read a, you know, Pete
Flint, from Trulia, founder ofTrulia, he has a venture capital
firm called NFX, and they justdid a really interesting article
on NFX stands for networkeffects, and talks just
basically about how to grow andscale, you know, business, so

(27:46):
but they just did a reallyinteresting Blog Post article or
whatever, on the network effectsof, you know, kind of key cities
and showing how much thedifference in growth and
valuation etc, are of newbusiness is in these city
centers versus other places.
And, you know, they're there,they were definitely coming to

(28:12):
the conclusion that that's goingto continue, right. And that
these economic hubs will stillbe important, if you've given
any thought to that.

Daryl Fairweather (28:23):
Well, I think that, so places like Austin, for
example, is in the news forattracting, you know, Tesla, or
Oracle, there's a lot I mean, itseems to be an emerging tech
hub. So, I think it's going tobe very important in the future
for the growth of a city likeAustin, once one big employer in
a certain field, you know,establishes themselves in a

(28:43):
city, it becomes much moreattractive for other employers
in that same field, because theydon't have to work as hard to
convince people to move there,because the people they want to
hire are already there. So, Ithink like, I think it will be
still relevant, especially inthe growth of some of these
emerging job centers. And Ithink we're probably going to
see more employers pay attentionto where their employees want to

(29:06):
work remotely. And there becomesa critical mass of people in one
place, they'll open up anotheroffice so that they can still
have somewhat of an officeculture.

Sean O'Toole (29:16):
Yeah, and we've done that in our Portland
office, most of our Portlandfolks work from home. But we
have this office where folks cancome in and gather and
congregate and, you know, meetfor lunch and work on projects
and stuff. And I actually lovethat model where, you know, it's
flexible for the employee, butthey do have a place to go if

(29:39):
there's remodeling or kids orsomething going on at home that
they need to get away from. So,I think that hybrid model has a
lot of, a lot of potential.

Aaron Norris (29:50):
You have access to such cool data. You don't have
to wait for the census. Youdon't have to wait month over
month in a lot of ways you'reseeing things live as they have,
has a happen that has got to betremendously cool. I was
particularly interested inasking you this question as
people are relocatingbehaviorally, what makes a great

(30:11):
city? Is it just a function ofaffordability? Is it vitamin D
in the sun? Like, what? Why arepeople moving where they're
moving?

Daryl Fairweather (30:19):
Well, I think pre pandemic, a big driver was
just where they could find a jobthat gave them you know, the
kind of lifestyle they wanted.
But now that the relationshipbetween where you live and where
you work has been tethered,people are moving more towards
where they want to live for thepersonal preferences. So, for
some people, that means movingto be close to family moving
back to their hometown. For somepeople, it's moving to more

(30:43):
sunny places. The sunbelt, hasbeen a big attractor of people
for a long time, and it'llcontinue to be that way. And
affordability is a factor. But Ithink it really is this the
bigger picture of you know,where, if you're, if you're, for
example, raising a family, wheredo you want to send your kids to
school? Are you going to beclose to your parents or your in
laws to help with childcare?

(31:06):
Does the city or town have thevalues that you align yourself
with all those factors areimportant to people.

Sean O'Toole (31:13):
So, Redfin really made the name for themselves as
a brokerage as being probablyone of the strongest, you know,
real estate search sites. Why isit that still no search sites
allow you to search by any ofthese things that as a
prospective home buyer, that'snow looking to move I care about
right, I can't search by whatactivities are in the area, I

(31:34):
can't search by cost of living.
I can't search by, you know, jobavailability in my career, like
all these things that I thinkdrive people to move, not a
single search site offers any ofthose as search criteria. Any
thoughts on that?

Daryl Fairweather (31:52):
So, I think the way that most people buy a
home is that they go down to aneighborhood or a city or
neighborhood and then they startlooking for the home that they
want. And those factors that youmentioned, don't vary a whole
lot at the neighborhood within aneighborhood. So, you can go and
find the cost of living perhapson a different portal, and then

(32:13):
it just a lot less burdensome tointegrate it into the listing
website. I mean, anything thatyou put on the listing website
cost something computationally.
So, I think that's one of thereasons you can't find like
literally everything. But atleast on Redfin, if you go to
our Redfin data center, we dohave this thing that we
developed called the jobopportunity tool where you can
type in your occupation, and seehow much money you would have
left over after paying forhousing costs and energy costs

(32:36):
and things like that, thatbasically your disposable income
based on your occupation, in anyMetro in the US. So, again, it
probably wouldn't vary at theneighborhood level, but it does
vary at the metro level. So, youcan use that tool to kind of
narrow down to a metro and youcan go over to the listing
website and look for houseswithin the metro.

Sean O'Toole (32:57):
Super cool. I like that. So, one of the things that
you do get to see right, asyou've got a lot of people
coming to your site andsearching so you can actually
answer that questionauthoritatively. Do people, when
you have identify a particularuser showing up to your site,
are they only looking in onelocation? Or are they bouncing

(33:17):
around the way my wife and I dofrom, you know, Austin, to San
Luis Obispo to Portland towherever you like, we're all
over the place. We don't knowwhere the heck you know, next is
we'll always have a place inTahoe, but I'm sure there'll be
some other place we have at somepoint. And you know, but we're

(33:37):
all over the place. So, is thatsomething you, you look at and
say, 'Wow, are people having ahard time figuring out location?
Or does everybody that show upon our site know where they want
to be?'

Daryl Fairweather (33:49):
So, it's a hard question to answer because
a lot of people browse Redfinfor leisure purposes. And so
it's hard to know if people arebouncing around because they
really can't decide where theywant to live, or because they're
just curious about, you know,how much his home costs were my
sister-in-law lives. Forexample, I'm just curious about
what it would be like. What wedo is that we will look at

(34:13):
search activity for people whowe think are serious based on
their they've narrowed down,they're looking in one area a
certain percentage of the time,and then we can identify people
that we think are seriouslythinking about moving from one
metro area to another metroarea, and we report out on that
in our in our migration report.

Aaron Norris (34:32):
Interesting.

Sean O'Toole (34:33):
Tell us a little bit about that migration report.

Aaron Norris (34:35):
Yeah.

Daryl Fairweather (34:36):
So, unsurprisingly, migration is at
an all time high, almost 30% ofpeople are looking to leave
their metro area for a differentmetro. And some of the top
places are Sacramento. A lot ofpeople in the Bay Area are
looking to move to Sacramento.
It's close by it's much moreaffordable. So, that's a big
driver. Austin is another onePhoenix, these are kind of the

(34:59):
areas that have been at the topfor a while, but it's just been
increasing how many people arelooking to move to those places.

Sean O'Toole (35:08):
And how often you guys publish that?

Daryl Fairweather (35:11):
Quarterly.

Sean O'Toole (35:12):
Quarterly, nice.
And it's just kind of the toplocations where people are
searching and you're able totell where they're from based
on, you know, like a reverse IPaddress kind of thing. You see
the IP addresses are comingfrom, you know, roughly their
location so you can see wherethey are and where they're
looking.

Daryl Fairweather (35:28):
Yes. Yes. So, you can click on a place like
Austin, and you can see whatpercent of people are searching
from the Bay Area, Los Angeles,New York, DC. Yeah, those
breakdowns that we publishesquarterly.

Sean O'Toole (35:42):
Super cool.

Aaron Norris (35:43):
Do you see insights into, Is there anything
surprising in the data when itcomes to what they're looking
for? Are the homes larger? Maybemore bedrooms? More space?

Daryl Fairweather (35:55):
Yes. So, we looked into whether people are
looking for more spacious homesand they are, I forget what the
exact number is, but squarefootage is a bigger, is a bigger
ask right now. I think pricesare going up more for the bigger
homes. We've looked at pricepoint too where we've published
a luxury report looking at thetop 5% in terms of the Redfin
estimate, how many of thosehomes are selling right now?

(36:17):
What's the price growth forthose homes and luxury home
sales are just like through theroof right now. I think in Q2,
they're up around 46, 42%. Itwas in the 40s year over year,
so, just huge growth. And alsosecond home sales are up a ton.
They're 100%. So, some of thoseitems that may have been like

(36:39):
nice to haves before thepandemic or must haves because
people are spending more time athome.

Sean O'Toole (36:45):
Probably a lot more drive for more bedrooms,
too, right? Because bedrooms canbe offices.

Daryl Fairweather (36:50):
Right, right.
The home office is a, is a bigask, a nice backyard to who
wants a private outdoor space. Anice kitchen because everyone's
cooking at home.

Sean O'Toole (37:00):
Yeah, no, that makes sense.

Aaron Norris (37:03):
Interesting. Yeah, I know the builders have talked
about for the last number ofyears, the average square
footage that the builders weredoing has slowly gone down. I
don't know if that was afunction on average of more
condos being built or something.
But I think the conversation isthat that's expected to increase
as well. In you, you have some Iwill definitely link to this
article, you have some 2021predictions on the Redfin

(37:23):
website, maybe you can sharewith us a little bit about some
of the things you've talkedabout, because you definitely
talk about some things I don'tusually hear.

Daryl Fairweather (37:33):
So, one is that we think that home sales
are going to increase more than10% next year. This year, there
was this big pause in the realestate market, the beginning of
the pandemic, and then it shotright back up. And overall,
we're going to end the yearabout 5%, higher home sales than
in 2019, that in 2021, we expectthat to increase another 10%.

(37:54):
And that's driven a lot by lowmortgage rates, mortgage rates
are lower than anyone everthought they would get. And
that's making homeownership moreaffordable. And also, remote
work has just encouraged a lotof people to make a move, they
spending more time at home.
They're reevaluating whether ornot the place they're in is

(38:14):
really where they want to be, orthey're just living there
because it's close to theoffice. And that's just driving
a lot of people to move. It'shappened this year, I think it's
gonna continue even more so nextyear.

Aaron Norris (38:26):
I think one of my favorite headlines of your
report or something, I don't seea ton of people talking about
you. So, the homeownership rateswill reach 70% for the first
time since 2005. And that looksso different because we're not
doing higher loans anymore. So,you can't breathe and get a
loan. So, that 70% seems alittle bit more real this time.

Daryl Fairweather (38:45):
Yeah. And so, one thing, again, with remote
work is that if you were livingin a place like the Bay Area,
maybe you had a very goodsalary, but you still couldn't
afford Bay Area prices. Well,now you can keep your salary, at
least most of it and move to asuburb that's more affordable or
move to a completely differentcity like Sacramento and Las
Vegas, and homeownership is nowmuch more attainable to you. And

(39:06):
if you were renting before, thenyou become a homeowner that
increase the homeownership rate.
But there's also the secondaryeffect, where if you're renting,
and let's say you were rentingout a condo, and somebody else,
that person that, that landlordis probably looking at the
rental market right now andthinking like, I don't want to
have to deal with finding a newtenant, I don't want to have to
drop my rent by 20%, which ishow much rent has gone down in

(39:29):
Seattle. So, we're going to seea lot more condos converted into
apartments. I think it's goingto start with these kind of mom
and pop landlords who wereholding onto multiple properties
because why not, home suppliesare going up so much a lot of
them are going to re-evaluatethat and there's going to be
more basically starter homesavailable for people living in
cities because condos are moreaffordable than some of the

(39:52):
single family homes.

Aaron Norris (39:56):
You had some insights to, into and I thought
this was interesting, expensivecities will invest in their
cultures as a way to get peopleto come back. That was a really
interesting take. Why eventhought about that. So, cities
are going to have to invest alittle bit in making it
attractive for people to want tostay.

Daryl Fairweather (40:15):
Yeah, and just make it, I mean, people
aren't going to stay justbecause that's what their job is
anymore. And I think of a placelike Paris, for example. And I
don't think people decide tolive in Paris, because that's
where they're going to get theirjob, or that's where they want
to start their careers. It's,it's because people dream of
living there because of theculture because the food because
of the art, and a city like NewYork has that going for it, too.

(40:37):
And they can pivot from justbeing a white collar center to
being more of a cultural center,because they have that going on
for them.

Sean O'Toole (40:45):
So, does that mean San Francisco is gonna clean up
the streets?

Daryl Fairweather (40:49):
So, I think they have an incentive too. I'm,
I think they will, I thinkthat's a smart thing to do.
We'll see if they're able to dothat, politically. I don't have
much of a prediction there. Imean, obviously, homelessness
has been something that has beena very tenuous issue for
Seattle, San Francisco, some ofthese other cities, New York,

(41:10):
too. So, I heard I don't want tobe an expert there on how they
would go about that, but I thinkI work towards is just making it
a more pleasant place to livefor everyone who wants to live
there.

Sean O'Toole (41:22):
You said something earlier, that's a very common
perception, right? That lowerinterest rates make homes more
affordable.

Daryl Fairweather (41:32):
In the short term.

Sean O'Toole (41:34):
I was gonna say, when I look back, it's like, you
look at the GI Bill, right. Andwe saw the largest increase in
home prices, you know, as aresult, and I think all the
benefits of 30 year financingand stuff were sucked up by home
prices. And for those peoplethat I guess, you know, can get
the credit and the rest it, itdoesn't really make a difference

(41:56):
in their payment. And itartificially increases. But it
really increases overall, itmakes homeownership less
affordable, right? Becauseyou're gonna pay lower interest
rates, higher prices, so samepayment at the end of the day.
So, really the sameaffordability once it, it goes
into account, but property taxesare higher, insurance is higher,

(42:17):
right, everything else ishigher. So, everybody's cheering
low, you know, interest rates.
But I don't know, I'm more andmore convinced that low interest
rates have made housing a lotless affordable. What do you
think of that?

Daryl Fairweather (42:32):
I think if you look at the total cost of
owning a home in the long run,it is a wash when interest rates
go down, prices go up. And likeyou said prices also affect
property taxes. But it does openup at least for 2021 this
opportunity, this window whenyou know for the same price, you
can get a more affordable home,especially for those short term

(42:53):
changes, like we did an analysisit actually just went out today
about when was the mostaffordable month to buy a home
this year, based on what yourmortgage will be. Yeah. And in
most of the markets, it wasactually November, even though
prices have gone up the wholeyear. Because interest rates
have been so low.

Sean O'Toole (43:11):
Combination of low rate and price.

Daryl Fairweather (43:13):
Yeah, there were a few months where.

Sean O'Toole (43:15):
November closing or November going into contract?

Daryl Fairweather (43:19):
Going under contract, or yeah, go under
contract.

Sean O'Toole (43:22):
Okay. Interesting.

Daryl Fairweather (43:23):
Um, there was a few and a few markets, April
was the best because I mean,that was at the peak of the era
when the shutdown firsthappened. I think it was like
San Francisco, Los Angeles,that, that was when it was the
most affordable. And but therewere some markets where it was
January, but overall,nationally, November was the
best.

Sean O'Toole (43:42):
Ah, that's I wouldn't have guessed that. So,
that's great. That's, that's a,that was a good piece of
research. Was that with youridea?

Daryl Fairweather (43:50):
It was a team.

Sean O'Toole (43:52):
All right, that's nice, I give credit to
everybody.

Aaron Norris (43:56):
There's been some talk about Gen Z, this upcoming
generation getting intohomeownership a lot, they're
interested in home buying a lotsooner than they're the Gen Y
group of millennials.

Sean O'Toole (44:06):
They are making too much money in their
Robinhood accounts, they got todo something with it.

Aaron Norris (44:10):
Your Bitcoin has gone crazy. Yeah. Is there any
thought to why that shift all ofa sudden?

Daryl Fairweather (44:16):
That's interesting. I actually haven't
heard that that Gen Z is moreinterested.

Aaron Norris (44:21):
It came up at a conference last year at the
National Association of RealEstate Editors, and I think it
came from the builders that theyhad done a survey and Gen Z, one
of their hurdles was that theythought they had to have 11%
down, but that they were veryinterested in using a Realtor in
the transaction. And they wereinterested in home ownership,
more so than their millennialcohorts, which I thought was
very interesting.

Daryl Fairweather (44:41):
I mean, I think millennials were scarred
by the foreclosure crisis. Ithink they're up until that
point, we heard from our parentsthat homeownership was like the
most safe investment. And thenthat logic just got totally
abandoned during the foreclosurecrisis. And I think a lot of
millennials just started tothink maybe this isn't the
safest thing, why not put thatmoney in the stock market, if

(45:03):
there's a risk of that wholedies could go down just the way
that stock market prices godown.

Aaron Norris (45:07):
That's a lot of people don't talk about that,
though. They just say, hey, theydecided to over educate, they
have too much debt. And that'swhy, but they don't talk about
them watching their parents gothrough the foreclosure crisis
is possibly one of the datapoints that cause them to hold
on, so.

Sean O'Toole (45:23):
Part of that student debt is their parents
not being able to pitch in asmuch as they probably plan to
because of what happened tothem. So, I mean, that really
made millennials feel it verypersonally.

Aaron Norris (45:35):
Are the baby boomers doing anything different
from real estate this timearound? are they staying in
place? Are they still netsellers of real estate? I don't
know.

Daryl Fairweather (45:44):
People have been staying their homes longer.
And part of that is people, youknow, avoiding I think senior
living facilities, I mean,that's probably going to
increase even more during thepandemic, it'll look prefer just
to live in their homes, modifytheir homes, and people are
living longer and stayinghealthier, longer. So, they'd
rather just stay in their homes.
Another reason, though, is justthe way that the tax code is set

(46:05):
up in a lot of places. So, inCalifornia, for example, your
property tax gets set, it can goup by more than a certain
amount, I think it's 2% a year.
So, if home values keep going upand your property taxes don't,
then you don't have thismotivation to find a place that
to move because then you'regonna take a hit, and your new

(46:27):
property taxes.

Sean O'Toole (46:28):
Interesting on the property taxes, like a lot of
people go 2% and only goes up 2%a year. But, you know, 2%, more
than inflation has averaged forthe last 10 years right. So, in
terms of like, the money beinggenerated, even it just 2% for,
you know, firefighters andteachers and stuff, it's, it's
exceeding inflation. You know,at least for the last 10 years,

(46:51):
there was period of time backin, you know, 70s and 80s. When
that that Prop13 first went intoaccount, or that wasn't true.
So, the fact that, you know,real estate is inflating so much
faster than inflation. I mean,how long, that's got to have a,
it's got to stretch, you know,to a certain point not be

(47:13):
possible anymore right? So,does, does it does real estate
goes super flat at some pointlike, you know, in Japan, right,
when they had their, their greatdebt problem back in the 80s.
right. Home prices have beenrelatively flat since and
they've had very low interestrates. Think 30, 40 year

(47:35):
mortgage is now one and a halfpercent there. Is that is that
our future super flat realestate prices, because we just
continue to have them exceedinflation so much that it has to
stop at some point?

Daryl Fairweather (47:48):
I would love to get to that question. So,
first of all, back to theproperty taxes. The issue isn't
so much what California chargesin property taxes, I think he
can make an argument that, youknow, property taxes should, you
know, not increase, but I thinkwhat's, what are not increased
more than 2%. The issue is thatyour property taxes are

(48:11):
different if you stay in yourhome versus if you sell and buy
a home, that's the same exactvalue as your current home. So,
if you personally are looking tomove from one side of town to
the other side of town to becloser to your kids or something
like that, you may not make thatdecision, just because you don't
want to miss out on yourproperty tax saving. So, it

(48:32):
creates this distortion wherepeople just stay in their homes
longer. And there are as manyhomes available for sale.

Sean O'Toole (48:38):
Just for just for everybody listening out there.
That's only true if you're under55. Now, if you're over 55, you
get you get to move it with you.

Daryl Fairweather (48:45):
Oh yeah they did change that. And I think
they change it to that like, itused to be that you could pass
it down to your kids. And nowyou pass it only to your kids
if, no, I think if they live init, they can't use it as like an
investment.

Sean O'Toole (48:58):
Right, right.
Sorry. Back to, does it have togo flat at some point inflation
versus yeah.

Daryl Fairweather (49:07):
Yeah. So, again, back to Japan. So, I
think Japan isn't reallycomparable to how real estate
works in the US because there'sthis culture in Japan where when
you buy a house, you basicallytear it down and build a new
house. They like to build customhouses. And I think that's one
of the reasons that their homeprices don't go up as much
because it's kind of this. It'snot a long term asset to them.

(49:29):
It's like a short term asset andunderlying land is still long
term. But the house they view ismore of a temporary thing that
you build to your own taste. Andthe US that doesn't happen so
much. And I don't think there'sany reason that home prices have
to fall inflation either. Ifanything, the fact that
inflation is low is an extrareason that you would see home

(49:49):
prices go up because the morepeople say, like people may not
be spending it the more peoplesave in terms of their
disposable income. I'm not goingto the movies every week, but
spending money on Netflix, whichis more affordable, or they're
not upgrading their computer andspending extra $1,000 on it,
computers are getting deeperthings like that the more money

(50:10):
they have leftover to spend onhousing, and it actually can
increase demand for housing. Andif there isn't a commensurate
increase in supply that willcause home prices to go up.
There are a couple of asset orinvestments, assets goods in the
US where prices have gone upfaster than inflation, housing,
health care, education, and allthat everything that all these

(50:33):
things have in common is thatthey're not just goods or
services, they're alsoinvestments, that people put
their money into it, not justbecause they enjoy them, but
they expect to get a return onit.

Sean O'Toole (50:45):
Good. And on.
Shoot, I lost it. But I thinkthere's a really, so, there's
the one of the things thatpeople have been talking about
because of the pandemic and notbeing able to go to movies or
not going out to eat as much asa savings glut. Right. And you
were kind of touching on that,that you know, that people do
have now extra money to putsomewhere. And so, some of that

(51:07):
is going to housing and, youknow, I've heard talk of that is
a trillion dollar savings glut,that when we get through this,
it's going to come pouring intothe economy. I mean, we may see
a real, so, is that part ofyour, was that part of what you
took into account in terms ofthis, you know, 10% growth next
year, that some of that savingsglut is going to come through

(51:27):
and find its way into housingand be very bullish for housing
next year?

Daryl Fairweather (51:33):
It does seem like that people are keen to
spend money on housing. I thinkpart of that is what you said
that people have more variablesthan money on other things. And
so they're wanting to spend onhousing, lots of people are also
spending more time in theirhomes? When we're out of this
pandemic, I think there's goingto be pent up demand for some of
those more experiential goodsand services like travel or

(51:54):
going to the nail spa or diner,or whatever. So, I think I
haven't actually worried or notworry, I'm not too worried about
it. But I think we may see atemporary spike in prices for
those things. I apologize, youcan hear my toddler he just
probably got home from the park.

Aaron Norris (52:14):
Is there any data that you wish you had as an
economist that you think wouldmake a difference in your
predictions?

Daryl Fairweather (52:22):
It would be great to have more fine
breakdowns on how people arespending their money right now,
like if I knew precisely howmuch money people were spending
on travel or services before thepandemic, how much they aren't
spending on that now. And we cankind of look at that at a broad
level, like looking at thesavings rate. But we saw what
the savings rate was thatthere's a big spike when people

(52:43):
got those 12 $100 checks. Andthen it's been winding down ever
since Apollo being a smallerspec with a $600 checks that are
coming out. So yeah, it will beinteresting to know how much
people are saving for theirbills versus saving just because
they don't have anywhere tospend the money.

Aaron Norris (53:02):
Any other really interesting things that you're
watching that would completelychange the game for you in 2021?

Daryl Fairweather (53:08):
I'm just excited about technology in real
estate. I mean, there's beenthis big, I think people depend
on it. People have been tryingout new ways to buy homes,
whether it's clicking through a3d scan on a home, having their
agent do a tour, video tour of ahome. So, I think next year will
be or in the years to come itwill be really interesting to
see how much more technologyadoption there is in real

(53:29):
estate.

Aaron Norris (53:31):
Very cool. Well, anything else we should talk
about before we talk about wherepeople can follow your work? You
do a lot of really cool stuffyour team does.

Sean O'Toole (53:41):
Well maybe just list off other I mean, the
migration report I wasn'tunfamiliar with. So, are there
other key reports and thingsyou'd like to mention folks to
check out?

Daryl Fairweather (53:50):
Sure, we do a luxury report every quarter. So,
looking at just that top 5% ofhome values. We actually but
we've changed it a bit. So, webreak it out by different price
points. It's not just luxury,but we do compare different
price points and the home salesthat are occurring there. We
have a new construction report.
So, tracking how much I mean newhomes are being built. What else
do we have? Oh, we have likehottest neighborhoods. We just

(54:13):
published that report. And thetop neighborhoods right now are
vacation towns and suburbs.
That's where people want tomove. And they're moving away
from the cities. Some of theseplaces like I mentioned that are
more desirable for theirlifestyles.

Sean O'Toole (54:27):
We get to swipe right, swipe left, hot, not.

Daryl Fairweather (54:32):
Yeah, I think of like a better adjective in
real estate. All we ever talkabout is like real estate is so
hot right now or.

Aaron Norris (54:40):
Just doesn't sound as good like, 'It's so livable.
The quality of life is amazing'.

Daryl Fairweather (54:44):
Yeah.

Aaron Norris (54:45):
How do you capture that? I will make sure to link
to some of those reports. Ifollow you on Twitter. That's
where I stay on top of a lot ofstuff that you're specifically
talking on.

Daryl Fairweath (54:58):
@FairweatherPhD if anyone wants to follow me.

Aaron Norris (55:00):
Yeah, and I'll definitely

Daryl Fairweather (55:01):
We can talk about board games and real
estate.

Aaron Norris (55:03):
Did you say board games?

Daryl Fairweather (55:04):
Yeah. That's one of my interests. You can
actually see my collection backthere.

Aaron Norris (55:11):
I couldn't see that. I thought those are books.
I have to ask, favorite boardgames of 2021. What should we be
playing?

Daryl Fairweather (55:18):
If you're into real estate and board
games, you should check outSuburbia. It's this great game
where you can build a town youcan put down housing, you can
build offices, and you cancompetitively design your own,
your own town.

Aaron Norris (55:31):
Guilty pleasure for me is SimCity.

Sean O'Toole (55:33):
That's great.

Daryl Fairweather (55:33):
Yeah, that's a great game for fans of
SimCity.

Aaron Norris (55:36):
Oh, I can get lost for hours and SimCity I can't, I
don't have it anymore on myiPad, because I would play it
too much. It's ridiculous.

Sean O'Toole (55:44):
I know, we're out of time. But that just reminded
me a big, big one. One last bigquestion, a realization, you
know, what are you seeing inbuying trends out in places
that, you know, people wouldn'thave previously bought? Are you
seeing any of that?

Daryl Fairweather (56:01):
Some of the, rural, rural home prices spiked
well above urban prices, it waslike rural prices go have the
most sense of urban than urban.
Just as people wanting to getthe wide open spaces. I think
that's part of just thepandemic. And maybe I think part
of that there will be a backlashto it. Like I think people may
be over indexed on the benefitof wide open spaces, when there
is some fear of dense living atthe beginning. But in the long

(56:26):
term, I think that we will seepeople leave urban areas for
more suburban places.

Sean O'Toole (56:33):
Still, so, but so more bullish on suburban than
rural?

Daryl Fairweather (56:38):
Yeah. Well, maybe I think you'll see like
the urbanization of the suburbswhere you see more restaurants
pop up in the suburbs, moreshopping, things like that. And
maybe the suburbanization ofmore rural areas. But yeah, I
wouldn't, I wouldn't be toobullish on like, you know,
places that don't have a ton ofamenities.

Sean O'Toole (56:57):
Okay. Okay, fair enough.

Aaron Norris (57:00):
There's only stuff things you can do in a
cornfield. Very cool. Well,thank you so much for your time,
I'll make sure to post all theselinks so people can follow your
work. And thanks for being here.

Daryl Fairweather (57:10):
Thank you, this is a pleasure.

Aaron Norris (57:13):
Thank you for listening to the Data Driven
Real Estate Podcast, you canfind show notes and links to
some of the resources mentionedin the show at
datadrivenrealestate.com. Clickthat join the community, and
you'll be forwarded to thePropertyRadar community where
you can ask questions about thecurrent show and even see
upcoming guests and askquestions there. We'd love to
engage with you in thecommunity. So check it out.

(57:33):
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