The Q1 2024 Rental Market Report: Key Insights
The Rental Beast Q1 2024 Market Report provides an in-depth look at the current U.S. rental market, highlighting key trends and shifts. The report is exclusive to the Rental Expert Series program, which is designed to provide real estate professionals with valuable insights, data, educational content, and more to help them succeed in rentals. Rent Price Expectations A significant finding from the report is the anticipation of rent price changes. About 33% of property owners expect rent prices to rise over the next six months, while 67% believe prices will remain stable. This suggests a positive outlook for the rental market, with expectations of either stability or modest growth. Rental Price Trends: Year-over-Year Comparison Comparing Q1 2024 to Q1 2023, there has been a decrease in median rents across most property types, with declines ranging from 2% to 4%. However, single-family homes bucked this trend with a 4% increase in rents, indicating varied rental dynamics across different property types. Market Dynamics and Demand The report also highlights the average time properties spend on the market. Single-family homes typically remain available for 18 days, while multifamily homes take about 22 days. This suggests differing levels of demand and inventory between these property types. Concessions and Listings Fluctuations in concession percentages over the past year indicate changing landlord policies or market conditions. Additionally, a decline in listing volumes suggests shifting supply dynamics, potentially making it more challenging for tenants to find new rental options. Overall, the Rental Beast Q1 2024 Market Report depicts a stable yet evolving rental market. Property owners can expect a generally positive environment, while tenants might experience some variability depending on the property type and location. Staying informed about these trends will be crucial for navigating the rental market in 2024. Get More With the Rental Expert Series The Rental Beast Market Reports are critical resources for real estate professionals navigating the ever-evolving rental market. Sign up for the Rental Expert Series here to stay on top of the rental trends and get insights about the market. To view the original article, visit the Rental Beast

Brokers and Tech Vendors Demand a Less Fragmented MLS Data Access System
WAV Group's tech workgroup met to recap the recent Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO) conference. By all accounts, the RESO API standards have made remarkable strides to make it easier for brokers and their vendors to access MLS records for their applications – but we have a long way to go on this critical mission, because the industry is still heavily fragmented. Some systems like Trestle and MLS Grid have made the effort of consuming MLS data more reasonable by consolidating across multiple markets, but for most brokers and vendors, they are still relying on the real estate transaction standard (RETS). This is not intended to be a technical post, but will explain what is happening today across more than 500 MLSs and offer ways that MLSs can help with fragmentation. Background on MLS Data Distribution In the early 90s, MLSs pioneered the process of making the MLS records available to brokers and their vendors. Initially, the transport method was file transfer protocol, or FTP. Basically, each MLS dumped all of their data onto a server and brokers and vendors could go grab it. From there, it was sorted and normalized so products worked across different markets. It is hard, painstaking work. National tech firms would literally download all MLS data from more than 1,000 MLSs at the time – every day! FTP was replaced by RETS in the late 90s when IDX was born. RETS is still in place in just about every MLS market today. With RETS, brokers and vendors do not need to pull all of the data every time (like FTP) but can pull only those parts of the MLS records that changed since the last time they were accessed. RETS was a major leap forward, but the effort to painstakingly map data that uses different field names and field numerations is horrible. Most of all, RETS is a real estate industry specific method of organizing and moving data – completely foreign to the methods that anyone outside of the real estate industry would ever know or understand. Aside from the learning curve, RETS also usually requires full replication of the MLS data on the vendor servers. Around the year 2015 or so, RESO published the first WebAPI standard. An API is an application programming interface. Every technology student is taught to work with APIs – and they work pretty much the same across all industries. It is based on Odata, a global technology protocol. Basically, it is a lot easier than RETS. Alongside the RESO WebAPI standard is the RESO Data Dictionary. The Data Dictionary determines what we call "fields" in the MLS records, along with how they are formatted – for example, a full bathroom = 1, not "one" or "full' or whatever name the MLS picks. The Data Dictionary allows for automated mapping of the data between the MLS system and the broker or vendor solution. The Problem of Fractionalization Continues to Plague Broker and Vendor Systems One of the most important inflection points for the RESO WebAPI and Data Dictionary standards happened when the National Association of REALTORS® issued a mandate that all Realtor association owned MLSs have one year to update their systems to the new standards that are released each year. In theory, every market should be on the same standard by the end of the year in which the update is published. NAR has not enforced the standard by penalizing or revoking an association's MLS charter for non-compliance. Sadly, the industry does not move to the new standards all at once. It is piecemealed as various MLS vendors make the conversion to the new standard. MLS data aggregators like Trestle and MLS Grid tend to update all markets representing about three-quarters of all MLS data in America, but the balance of markets changes randomly, and often without much notice. When these systems change, it breaks the data mapping to the applications. RESO has done a great job of offering certification to MLSs, and recently to vendors and brokers. The organization will look at your data and make sure that you are aligned with the current certifications. The problem here is that the 1,300 fields represent about 70% of the data in the MLS. As a result, any application that requires all fields, or most fields (like a VOW) are missing some key data from the WebAPI. In many markets, vital local data related to farms, waterfront, ski-in / ski-out accessibility, or hurricane shutters are not in the payload. RESO makes great strides to include more and more fields each year, but we are still a long way from the finish line (if a finish line even exists). Because of this, many large brokers and vendors still use RETS instead of the more efficient WebAPI. What Brokers and Vendors Can Do to Solve the Fractionalization Problem Be an advocate for positive change! First and foremost, the best way to solve the fractionalization problem is to continue to support RESO. It's a non-profit, so you benefit from the contributions. Secondly, voice your opinion at your local MLS. Any MLS can participate in CoreLogic's Trestle program or MLS Grid. Trestle provides a full data set including non-Data Dictionary fields. This is particularly important in Navica, Rapattoni, Black Knight, and to some degree, FBS. FBS was the first vendor to launch the SparkAPI, and they now offer the WebAPI as well. Consumers of data from FBS markets have a single access point in the Spark Datamart for all markets, and FBS maximizes adoption of RESO standards. Having your MLS join one of these multi-market programs like Trestle or MLS Grid also delivers a great backup to the local offering. It essentially provides a front-end-of-choice for technology providers. Overall, the industry is moving in a positive direction to eliminate fractionalization of MLS data, and we all owe a debt of gratitude to the volunteers and staff at RESO for making real estate applications much better and less expensive to brokers and agents. To view the original article, visit the WAV Group

Tailor Your Message and Impress Your Clients with RPR's Commercial AI ScriptWriter
Commercial real estate can be complicated. And even though you have the experience and a deep understanding of the nuances of the market and the industry, it can still be difficult to explain all those details and numbers to your clients. Thanks to RPR (Realtors Property Resource), it's time to impress and not stress! Introducing RPR's Commercial AI ScriptWriter. This easy-to-use, data-focused tool will give you an instant edge and help you quickly tailor insights to match your audience. Whether it's a pitch outline for a city planner, a one-pager explaining the area to a prospective tenant, or a deep-dive report for an investor — it's all at your fingertips and in your hands in seconds. The brains behind the RPR Commercial AI ScriptWriter Before we get to the how-to on using the Commercial AI ScriptWriter, we want you to know a little background on what went into creating it for our commercial and resimercial users. RPR prides itself on providing a laundry list of data-based features for today's commercial real estate specialists, including Site Selection tools, Trade Area Reports, ROI analytics, traffic data counts, POI mapping research, commercial comps and more. In particular, RPR's comprehensive commercial trade area data enables REALTORS® to generate detailed summaries of demographics, economics and tapestry segments for specific areas. This breakdown includes a thorough analysis of community characteristics and residents' spending habits. After receiving feedback, it was evident that agents highly value the commercial trade area data provided by RPR. They appreciate the abundance of information available to them without any additional costs. And for the record, RPR sources much of this data from Esri, a leading provider in the industry, whose data is highly sought after by Fortune 500 companies at significant costs. And yet, even with all these great resources, REALTORS® who practice commercial real estate have expressed a challenge in finding the time to sift through the extensive data and tailor it to different client types, such as Economic Development Councils, City Planners, tenants, building owners and investors. Additionally, they struggle to adjust the tone and presentation to suit the unique preferences and relationships with each client. This process of customization takes considerable time and effort, especially when catering to clients with diverse personalities and varying levels of communication styles. Addressing these individual client needs and preferences takes a lot of effort and can be a huge time-eater. Enhance your pitch with RPR's Commercial AI ScriptWriter Enter the RPR Commercial AI ScriptWriter! This AI-powered, generative tool rapidly sorts through the robust commercial trade area datasets including population characteristics (i.e., daytime population vs. residents), income (i.e., average household income), housing (median estimated home), spending habits (i.e., high-end wine), and much more. And then it offers real estate professionals a streamlined approach to creating different formats for presenting the information, depending on the audience and the goal. With RPR's Commercial AI ScriptWriter, users have the following formats that are customizable by audience (i.e., city planner), tone (engaging), and data inclusion (i.e., population stats): Presentation outline/direction: Lay-out for a pitch session. One pager: Quick explainer piece that narrates the landscape. Detailed report: Deeper understanding of an area that can be presented to more data-driven clients or used as the foundation for a feature article to illustrate market knowledge. How to find and use RPR's Commercial AI ScriptWriter To find the Commercial AI ScriptWriter, you'll need to locate the Trade Area Information page in RPR. There are several ways to do this, but one way is through the Property Details. Simply type in an address or area and search for your property. Then select Trade Area. On the upper right of the Attribute Summary, select Create Script. Now is the fun part! You can tailor your content by selecting: Tone: Select the tone that matches your style. Audience: Select your target audience: City Planners, Business Owners, Tenants or Investors. Data Points: Select essential data points that resonate with your clients. Now, choose your output format: One-pager: A concise explainer that captures the essence of the area. Detailed Report: This gives a deeper understanding of an area for data-driven clients or as the foundation for a thought-leadership article. Presentation outline: This is an outline for a pitch session. Another game-changing, data-focused tool from RPR Analyzing market demand, understanding consumer behavior, and identifying target markets for clients just became much easier thanks to RPR's new Commercial AI ScriptWriter. This informative content machine effectively showcases detailed insights into the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of different areas, while freeing you up to focus on other tasks and areas of your business. RPR's Commercial AI ScriptWriter saves you hours, tailors reports for any client and helps you inspire client confidence. Take it for a spin today! To view the original article, visit the RPR