Bryan
Hello and welcome back to Change and the Market, your weekly look at the changing real estate market. I'm your host, Bryan, joined as always by Mr. Chris Masiello. Chris, how are you doing today?
Chris
Hey Bryan. Good to be with you and good to see everybody.
Bryan
Yes, absolutely. And we're going to have a little bit of a shorter episode this week because we're gearing up for Memorial Day weekend, ready to get into it. So we're going to send everybody off with a little bit of real estate information before they head into that Memorial Day weekend. So how have things changed? What's the market doing right now, Chris?
Chris
You know what you're really seeing is the market itself settling in and you just see signs of that. You know, we moved into what we would typically look at as seasonality for the housing market. You know, internally, the last two days in a row, I think we booked 35 transactions each day—Monday and Tuesday—and we're filming this on Wednesday. You guys obviously see it on Friday, but.
So that's a pretty good indication about what about what's going on. You know, a few things that kind of came across the wire: You're seeing a stronger builder sentiment where the builders are understanding that we're not—as we've been talking about—that we're not in an economic housing cycle, but we're really more in a shift of housing.
And so when we say a shift to housing that includes real estate, of course, right? But it includes all housing. It includes apartment buildings and multifamilies, and condominiums, and retirement communities, and single-families. Right? I think a lot of times we say real estate, it kind of gets interpreted as single-family homes.
But housing is having a shift. I think the builders are understanding that now. And so there's a lot more positive sentiment on their part about coming in and filling in the gaps where they exist and being mindful of the economics, but not totally scared off by things like the noise about maybe a possible recession coming and things like that.
Because I think they're beginning to recognize that housing has a dramatic shift that it's going through and that they can fill the gap.
Bryan
Then kind of moving on that, the second topic we were talking about before we started was that Zillow put out—we were talking about last year, that Zillow was kind of pessimistic on the market. And similarly to how we've been talking—seeing this shift, your observation was that Zillow seems to be seeing the same thing that you are. Talk a little bit about that.
Chris
Yeah, I'm not a huge Zillow fan when it comes to some of their prognostications, although I thought it was interesting last year that they were very negative about the market. I think they predicted actually like a 2% drop in the market, and now they have come back out and they've revised that and they've said that they feel like the market is going to respond well—which it is in its own way—and that there's 37 markets across the country that they're really bullish about.
And of those 37, the northern New England markets that we cover, the population centers in northern New England—they're all part of those 37. So I think it's a little bit of armchair quarterbacking for Zillow. That's OK. They have the right to do that. But nevertheless, it's good information and I think people are feeling bullish about housing. Again, not just single-family real estate, single-family homes—but about housing in general, just because of this shortage.
And the shortage is going to take a while. And you know, I enjoy history. So during the Second World War, we were busy making other things, other than cars. Auto manufacturers were tasked to—you know, for war production—and in essence, didn't make any new cars for four years, and so used cars had as much value as a new car.
And we're kind of seeing the same thing in housing. You're taking a look at resale housing, which is getting almost kind of the same value as new housing because we haven't produced any more. So, we're in this cycle, this reboot or shift. And I think what you're seeing is this kind of slow recognition, acceptance—somewhere in between the two—that really, what we're in is a systemic and dynamic shift in housing.
Bryan
Not everybody can be as right as you are all the time, Chris, but it's good that Zillow caught up eventually.
Chris
I don't know about being right all the time!
Bryan
Well, at least on this show.
Chris
I've just mastered the wisdom from my own mistakes.
Bryan
There you go. Well, before we wrap up, we wanted to talk a little bit about Memorial Day. So we're going to end on that note as we're going into this Memorial Day weekend. What do you have to say about Memorial Day, Chris?
Chris
So we have a tradition within our community, within our organizations, where I send out a history of Memorial Day. And for those of you watching, if you want to do a little bit of fun research, look up the history of Memorial Day and it starts with the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers in Arlington Cemetery.
And some of the history around it is really amazing. And I think, you know, we all look at it—you know, especially the northeast—where it's "Goodbye Winter. Hello, Summer." We get excited because we've got weather and pools opening and all these other things. But I think it's important to take a moment and understand why we have this holiday and some of the facts behind it.
And, you know, an interesting fact is Arlington National Cemetery was the family home for Robert E. Lee. And when Robert E. Lee decided that he didn't want to be the general for the Army of the Potomac for the North, Lincoln came and confiscated his family home and turned it into the National Cemetery for the North.
There are just some really interesting facts to get into about how the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers works and all that. And as a country, we have so much to be proud of, and certainly thankful for the people who served and sacrificed on our behalf.
Bryan
Definitely a lot of fascinating history there. That is always something interesting to kind of look into, and you've got a long weekend. So you've got some extra time.
Chris
That's right.
Bryan
That's going to do it for this episode of Change and the Market. We hope everybody has a wonderful and safe Memorial Day weekend and we'll see you all back here next week for another brand-new episode of Change and the Market.
The Masiello Group is a second-generation family company that has been a trailblazer in New England real estate since 1966. With now more than 35 offices throughout northern New England, we're the largest residential real estate firm north of Boston to offer a complete suite of home services, including buying, selling, mortgage, title, insurance, relocation, and more.
You can find more information on today's market and other real estate trends by reading our blog weekly at https://www.masiello.com/news-and-updates/.
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