Brandon Pettis Real Estate Agent

Brandon Pettis

Realtor®
License# 02056557
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(562) 685-6499

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How AI Is Changing the Home Search — and How to Make It Work for You

By Brandon Pettis - September 09, 2026
How AI Is Changing the Home Search — and How to Make It Work for You For most of the internet era, searching for a home meant the same ritual: set your price cap, pick a number of bedrooms, check a few boxes, and scroll. Then the real work started — sifting through pages of results, opening listing after listing, digging for the details that actually mattered. That ritual is quietly starting
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2026 Mid-Year Market Check-In: What the First Half of the Year Tells Us About Your Next Move

By Brandon Pettis - August 11, 2026
2026 Mid-Year Market Check-In: What the First Half of the Year Tells Us About Your Next Move For the past two years, a lot of people have been waiting on the housing market to do one specific thing: drop rates dramatically and "unfreeze." That was the plan for buyers and sellers alike. I'll move when rates come down. That big drop never fully arrived. And the market changed anyway. It didn't un
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What You Can Negotiate in a Home Purchase (That Most Buyers Don't Realize)

By - July 06, 2026
What You Can Negotiate in a Home Purchase (That Most Buyers Don't Realize) When most people picture negotiating on a home, they picture one number: the list price. You offer somewhere under the asking price, the seller counters, you settle in the middle, and whoever gives up the most ground "loses." For a lot of buyers, that back-and-forth over the sale price is the negotiation. It's only a frac
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House Hacking in 2026: What the Hype Got Wrong — and What Actually Works

By - June 03, 2026
House Hacking in 2026: What the Hype Got Wrong — and What Actually Works If you've spent any time on real estate TikTok in the last few years, you've probably seen the house hacking pitch. Buy a property, rent part of it out, let your tenants cover the mortgage. Live for free. Build wealth while you sleep. It sounds like the kind of thing that works great in a YouTube thumbnail and falls apart i
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2026 Home Design Trends: What's In, What's Out, and What Buyers Are Responding To

By BRANDON PETTIS - May 05, 2026
2026 Home Design Trends: What's In, What's Out, and What Buyers Are Responding To After a decade of cool grays, crisp whites, and spaces that looked more like showrooms than homes, buyers have changed what they're looking for. Call it quiet luxury — the idea that richness comes from depth, craft, and intention rather than flash and excess. It's not maximalism. It's a shift toward spaces that feel
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Is Buying a Home Together Right for Your Family? Here's How to Think It Through

By Brandon Pettis - April 06, 2026
Is Buying a Home Together Right for Your Family? Here's How to Think It Through For a long time, multigenerational living had a reputation problem. It was the option families turned to when something had gone wrong — a job loss, a divorce, a health crisis. Moving back in with your parents, or having your parents move in with you, meant something hadn't worked out. That story has changed prett
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What Actually Makes a Listing Stand Out in 2026

By BRANDON PETTIS - March 05, 2026
What Actually Makes a Listing Stand Out in 2026 The playbook for selling a home has changed fast. Buyers have more options, more leverage, and they are using it. Active housing inventory rose more than 16% year-over-year in 2025 — one of the largest annual increases since the pandemic-era crunch.1 At the same time, 62% of homebuyers in 2025 paid below the original list price, the highest share si
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The True Cost of Homeownership: What You Pay Beyond the Mortgage

By Brandon Pettis - February 08, 2026
The True Cost of Homeownership: What You Pay Beyond the Mortgage When most homebuyers calculate whether they can afford a new home, they focus almost exclusively on one number: the monthly mortgage payment. It's the figure lenders qualify them for, the number discussed during showings, and the benchmark used to determine budgets. The average annual cost of owning and maintaining a single-family
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2026 US Housing Market Forecast: Will the Market Find Its Footing?

By Brandon Pettis - January 07, 2026
2026 US Housing Market Forecast: Will the Market Find Its Footing? Will 2026 be the year buyers stop waiting? Forecasters are split, predicting anywhere from 1.7%1 to 14%2 growth in home sales. That 12-point gap reveals the central question facing the housing market: how much will slightly lower mortgage rates and slowly eroding lock-in effects actually unlock pent-up demand? Nearly every major
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Planning Your 2026 Real Estate Moves: A Guide to the Best Buying and Selling Seasons

By Brandon Pettis - December 10, 2025
Timing isn’t everything in real estate, but it can mean the difference between saving $20,000 or paying a premium, selling in 30 days or waiting three months, and negotiating from a position of strength or uncertainty. As we look toward 2026, understanding seasonal patterns has become more critical than ever. With inventory levels normalizing and market conditions continuing to evolve, knowing wh
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Can You Really Trust Online Home Estimates?

By Brandon Pettis - November 14, 2025
For millions of homeowners, checking their Zillow Zestimate has become as routine as checking a stock portfolio—a quick hit of seeing your home's estimated value, right at your fingertips. With 178 million monthly users and over 100 million homes covered, the platform's instant, free, and convenient appeal is undeniable. But here's a famous cautionary tale: Spencer Rascoff, Zillow's former CEO, s
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