U.S. Real Estate Prices Up 8.8% Year-on-Year and Why the Housing Market is Hot

Realty Biz News recently reported that real estate prices in the United States increased by a remarkable 8.8 percent in the last 12 months ending in May. Citing CoreLogic data, the report said prices are expected to increase by another six percent for the next 12 months.

It added that prices have been increasing for the last 27 months, according to Propertywire.

All states recorded an increase in real estate prices while the District of Columbia and 25 other states had “peak home price appreciation.”

“The strongest year on year price increases were seen in Hawaii, Nevada and California, while the states of New York, Texas, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Alaska saw new highs,” the article said.

While the increase in prices is good for property owners and real estate companies, new buyers are having second thoughts because of the affordability.

“On one hand rapid and price increases have helped lift many homeowners out of negative equity, giving them the opportunity to move house if they desire. However prospective homeowners are also faced with issues over affordability. It’s hoped that if house prices cool down then it will help keep the housing recovery going,” Real Biz News said.

However, real estate companies and agents are now finding ways to further increase sales and entice buyers with the help of technology.

In addition to online listings that are easy to use, agents are now relying on the power of video to help sell a property to prospective buyers.

Drones have become increasingly popular over the past several months because of this, giving people a glimpse of what the neighborhood looks like.

Another helpful tool is RealBiz Media Group’s RBIZ Video Microsite Program, which allows brokers to have automatically created property videos from data listings and photos.

But more popular is RealBiz’s virtual tour program that is developed through HTML5 and optimized for mobile devices. Agents enrolled in the program can have unlimited virtual tours created that allow clients to have an interactive tour of a property. It allows customers to see and explore and accurate representation of the house of building through interactive video.

RealBiz Media reported that since it rolled out its Nestbuilder Agent and MVA video platform, it has received 15,000 active users and published 24,000 videos.

Its consumer site Nestbuilder.com, which hosts 1.6 million videos, has also had 51 percent increase in return visitors and 196 percent increase in page views.

Because of the effectivity of videos and the ease of use of the programs, RealBiz now has a client base of 350,000 real estate agents.