There’s an app for that: How new tech is changing the way we buy and sell homes T Jobs, Good Jobs, And Home Buying T ech pioneer Kodak, headquartered in the upstate New York city of Rochester, employed 145,000 workers in 1988, to manufacture, distribute, and market its film and cameras. Today, there are more photographic images taken in a single hour than were shot in all of the 1800s, many of them on Instagram, owned by Facebook, which employs just under 18,000. What this case is an example of is how technology may generate wealth and productivity in America in broad strokes on the one hand, but when it comes down to specific places and specific worker groups, they’re worse off than they were. Now, a positive jobs report this past Friday--235,000 jobs created in February, and a lower unemployment rate of 4.7%-- carries with it four key meaningful areas of interest for home builders and developers at present: household wage growth, consumer confidence, good job concentration, and interest rate increases. Let’s take a look at them, shall we? Wage and income growth: Calculated Risk blogger Bill McBride explains that household wage growth is trending upward, as evidenced in Friday’s jobs report. Here, McBride looks at earnings growth, employment to population ratio improvement, and declines in both part-time-for-economic-reasons and unemployed for more than 26 weeks groups. Read More he internet has become the go-to tool for homebuyers. Searchable listings on websites like Redfin, Trulia and Zillow have helped to modernize the homesales process by giving buyers a look at what properties are available in their community of choice from anywhere with internet access. According to a recent survey by the National Association of Realtors, 95% of homebuyers used the internet as part of their home search last year. When narrowed to just millennials, that figure jumps to 99%. Mobile is also catching on, with 58% of millennials and 46% of Gen-Xers using a device such as a smartphone or tablet to find their home. Read More APRIL 2017 | HBRA of Fairfield County | 31
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