Blog

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Search

Categories