iBuyers offer a contactless method for selling a home, so why aren’t they booming during a pandemic that has made social distancing the norm?

Sales for several iBuying platforms are way down. Opendoor, which started trading publicly on the stock market in December 2020, has seen its revenue fall by nearly half in the past year and doesn’t expect a full recovery for its business until 2022, The Wall Street Journal reports.

At the start of the pandemic last spring, most iBuyers—companies that buy and resell homes electronically—halted their businesses. By summer, they had come back online and resumed making instant cash offers to sellers who wanted to bypass the traditional homeselling process.

However, with high demand from buyers flooding the market—enticed by low interest rates and the remote work phenomenon—selling a home on the open market is appealing to many sellers. Traditional transactions aren’t taking long to close, and low inventory has made bidding wars common. Since iBuyers often make offers below fair market value, sellers may be more likely to work with a real estate professional to earn top dollar during this buyer frenzy.

Opendoor, which launched in 2014, remains a leader in the iBuying space, though it has faced challenges recently. While the company’s revenue surged 158% to $4.7 billion in 2019, Opendoor cut more than a third of its workforce in April 2020 due to economic hardship during the pandemic.

iBuyers have sold off a significant amount of their property portfolios amid the pandemic. Opendoor’s portfolio shrunk about 80% in the first six months of 2020. That has allowed other iBuyers, like Zillow Offers and RedfinNow, to gain market share. However, Opendoor doesn’t view other iBuyers as its chief competition, according to the Journal. Instead, the company sees traditional brokerages as its main rivals.

About half of Americans say they’re considering a move in the next year, according to a study from LendingTree. But where do they plan to move?

LendingTree researchers analyzed mortgage purchase requests on its platform in 2020 to find the moving patterns of potential buyers in each of the 50 states. They found that a clear majority plan to remain in the state they’re currently living in. Texans, according to the analysis, are the least likely to move to another state. On the other hand, New York has the highest number of residents looking to move out of state, but some aren’t going far. Nearly 25% of relocating New Yorkers are heading to the state next door: New Jersey.

Overall, the number one destination for out-of-state movers is Florida. Relocating residents from 14 of 50 states chose Florida as their most popular destination, the LendingTree study found.

Responding to pressure from local, state, and federal officials, Airbnb and its subsidiary HotelTonight say they’re doing their part to keep the public away from the nation’s capital ahead of the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden next week. Airbnb announced it is canceling all reservations in the Washington, D.C., metro area through inauguration week. It will also block users from making a new booking during that period. Those who made bookings will receive a refund. Airbnb says it will reimburse hosts at its own expense.

The FBI has warned of reports about armed militias and known hate groups attempting to disrupt next week’s inauguration. City officials in Washington have been urging Airbnb, VRBO, and other home-sharing platforms to remove their local listings until the inauguration is over.

The Nation’s Largest Trade Association ‘Stands With Our Democracy’

Airbnb recently announced a careful investigation of its guests after last week’s riots at the U.S. Capitol. The company says that any users who are identified as being part of a hate group or involved in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6 will be banned from its site.

So far, “we have identified numerous individuals who are either associated with known hate groups or otherwise involved in the criminal activity at the Capitol Building, and they have been banned from Airbnb’s platform,” the company announced Wednesday. Airbnb says it is cooperating with law enforcement and the media to help identify users who may have participated in last week’s Capitol riot.

A growing number of single-family homes under construction around the country will not be listed to consumers but only made available for rent. These growing numbers of build-to-rent homes could pose greater competition for house hunters, particularly in the entry-level price points where housing shortages already abound.

Investors are building tens of thousands of homes intended to be used as rentals, believing rentals will stay in high demand in suburban locations as home prices continue to rise, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Landlords in the suburbs with single-family housing have been reporting record occupancy and fast-rising rents since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s prompting build-to-rent projects to surge nationwide. Build-to-rent giants like American Homes 4 Rent, which has built 2,500 houses in more than 60 neighborhoods and has dozens more under development, and firms like Tricon Residential Inc. have been drawn to the space over the last few years. Landlords say renters are willing to pay premiums for brand-new homes.

“Every institutional investor is considering this space,” Trevor Koskovich, who leads investment sales at NorthMarq, a property deal adviser, told The Wall Street Journal. The company is involved in several build-to-rent projects in the Phoenix area, including 943 one- and two-bedroom single-family houses.

Builders are teaming up with investors to build neighborhoods of single-family rental homes. Taylor Morrison Home Corp. predicts an increasing share of new U.S. homes—about 5% over the next few years—will be sold directly to investors. Usually, that percentage hovers around 1% for the company. LGI Homes Inc. told The Wall Street Journal that build-to-rent homes likely comprised up to 10% of its 2020 sales, or 900 homes.

Over the 12 months ending Sept. 30, 2020, more than 50,000 homes had been built specifically as rentals, according to John Burns Real Estate Consulting.

ere are additional highlights from Houzz’s kitchen study:

• Bolder island colors: Forty-one percent of renovators differentiated their island cabinet color from the colors in the rest of the kitchen. Blue and gray are the top choices for nearly half of homeowners with contrasting island cabinets. However, only 13% chose these colors for their main wall cabinetry.
• Trending cabinetry: Shaker-style and white cabinet doors continue to be the top choice among renovators, despite decreasing in favor by five percentage points compared to last year.
• Added built-ins: Renovations for cabinetry also tended to include built-in specialty organizers, drawers, or trays. The most popular organizers in the kitchen installed are for cookie sheets and spices, the study finds. The most common specialty drawers included are pullout waste or recycling drawers. More than a third of kitchen renovations also included specialty shelving trays, such as revolving trays (such as Lazy Susans) or pullout or swing-out trays.
• Not so open: The number of homeowners renovating their kitchen spaces that created an open concept floor plan by opening up their kitchen to other spaces in the home has dropped significantly over the past year (53% in 2019 to 43% in 2021). But one in five homeowners is opening up their kitchen to outdoor space (22%).
• Appliances added to the island: Nearly two-thirds of homeowners renovating their kitchens add in an island, and more than half added an appliance to the island. The most popular appliances to include within the island are a dishwasher and microwave.
• Hardwood appeal wanes: Hardwood flooring dropped from the top-choice for flooring to number 2, behind ceramic or porcelain tile this year. Vinyl continues to grow more popular; 19% of renovators chose vinyl or resilient flooring last year, up 5 percentage points compared to 2019.
• Neutrals dominate: Neutral tones like gray, white, and beige on wall surfaces continue to dominate. Owners are adding in some color but reserving those color punches for multicolored backsplashes or blue walls.
• High-tech faucets and appliances: More than half of homeowners who upgraded their faucets and appliances sought more high-tech models. Wireless controls for appliances are gaining popularity.
• Median expenditures: The median expenditure on a major kitchen remodel—in which all the cabinets and appliances are replaced—was $35,000 last year. The median spend for a minor remodel is about $8,000.

Mortgage rates started the year with a new record low. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dropped to a 2.65% average this week, the lowest since Freddie Mac began tracking such records more than 50 years ago.

“Despite a full percentage point decline in rates over the past year, housing affordability has decreased because these low rates have been offset by rising home prices,” says Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “However, the forces behind the drop in rates have been shifting over the last few months, and rates are poised to rise modestly this year.” That could prompt a decline in housing affordability and squeeze home buyers during the spring selling season, Khater cautions.

The National Association of REALTORS® has forecasted mortgage rates to average 3.1% in 2021.

Freddie Mac reports the following national averages with mortgage rates for the week ending Jan. 7:

• 30-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged 2.65%, with an average 0.7 point, dropping from last week’s 2.67% average. Last year at this time, 30-year rates averaged 3.64%.
• 15-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged 2.16%, with an average 0.6 point, falling slightly from last week’s 2.17% average. A year ago, 15-year rates averaged 3.07%.
• 5-year hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages: averaged 2.75%, with an average 0.3 point, rising from last week’s 2.71% average. A year ago, 5-year ARMs averaged 3.30%.

Freddie Mac reports average points, along with average commitment rates, to better reflect the total upfront cost of obtaining a mortgage.