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Trust This.
By Joseph E. Seagle, Esq. ● Jan 10, 2025
Smart Brevity® count: 5 mins...1331 words
👋 Happy Friday! This coming Monday is “National Clean Off Your Desk Day.” I assume it’s always the second Monday in January to give us all time to get back to work after the holidays and settle down before realizing we need to clean our desks. I have more to say on this in the last panel below.
Situation Awareness: As a gift to kick off 2025, we’ve lowered the price of Land Trusts in Florida: Eleventh Edition on Amazon for both the paperback and Kindle versions. If you haven’t yet, now is the time to take advantage of the current low price before it goes back up.
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1 big thing: 2025 housing market trends to watch
HousingWire recently published a report (subscription required) on the two biggest housing trends to watch in 2025.
Why it matters: The U.S. housing market remains a battleground for affordability and inventory, with critical implications for real estate entrepreneurs navigating uncertain waters in 2025.
Affordability Crunch:
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Mortgage rates exceeding 7% have exacerbated affordability challenges, pushing the typical mortgage payment to $2,290—the highest ever recorded.
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While some Southern markets have seen marginal price declines, national home prices increased 4% in 2024 and are now at a median of $395,000.
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The persistence of high rates means affordability remains at its lowest in decades, stalling potential buyers.
State of Inventory:
Inventory levels are complex.
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While 27% more homes are on the market than last year, 36% of listings required price reductions, signaling a softer supply-demand balance.
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Immediate sales—a metric for homes sold almost instantly after listing—dropped significantly during the holiday season, hinting at tentative buyer demand.
The supply side shows promise, however:
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New unsold listings in late December 2024 were up 33% compared to the same week in 2023.
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Sellers seem more active, with an average of 8% more listings weekly toward the end of 2024.
Sales Outlook:
Pending sales—an indicator of upcoming closings—rose by 4% year-over-year but remain 30% below early 2022 levels. Analysts forecast a modest 5% growth in sales for 2025 if economic conditions stabilize.
What to watch:
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Mortgage rates: A potential dip below 6% could reignite buyer activity, alleviating affordability pressures.
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Seller participation: Increased listings could normalize the market after three years of post-pandemic stagnation.
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Price corrections: Elevated price reductions could pressure sellers to adjust expectations further in the face of cautious buyers.
The bottom line: For real estate investors, 2025 presents challenges and opportunities. Strategic acquisitions in regions with price softening and increased inventory could yield long-term value while staying attuned to mortgage rate movements, which will be crucial for gauging buyer demand.
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2. DOJ Targets Major Landlords in RealPage Antitrust Lawsuit
We’ve written a few times about RealPage’s property management software and the DOJ’s raid and lawsuit against the company. This week, it became an even bigger story.
Why it matters: The U.S. Department of Justice has expanded its antitrust lawsuit against RealPage. These firms collectively oversee more than 1.3 million rental units nationwide and are accused of using RealPage’s algorithmic pricing tools to coordinate rent increases, thereby suppressing market competition.
The DOJ alleges that RealPage’s software facilitated the sharing of sensitive rental data among competitors, enabling coordinated pricing strategies that led to artificially inflated rents. This practice is said to have particularly impacted renters in markets with significant RealPage penetration, including several Florida cities.
Florida landlords utilizing RealPage’s services may face increased scrutiny and potential legal challenges.
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The DOJ’s action signals a broader crackdown on anti-competitive practices in the rental market, emphasizing the need for compliance with antitrust laws.
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Landlords in Florida should assess their use of pricing software and data-sharing practices to ensure they do not inadvertently engage in activities that could be construed as collusion.
What they're saying: RealPage has denied the allegations, asserting that its software is designed to be legally compliant and that landlords are not obligated to follow its pricing recommendations. Some of the implicated landlords, including Greystar, have also denied wrongdoing and expressed intentions to contest the lawsuit vigorously.
What’s next: The outcome of this lawsuit could have significant ramifications for the rental housing market, particularly concerning the use of algorithmic pricing tools.
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A ruling against RealPage and the associated landlords may lead to stricter regulations and a reevaluation of data-sharing practices within the industry.
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Florida landlords should monitor developments in this case closely, as it may influence future operational and compliance standards.
Go deeper: Our previous articles: September 3, 2024, July 15, 2024, and November 25, 2022; plus Associated Press, Reuters, MSN, and Wall Street Journal
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This week’s Trust This podcast features attorney Jefferson Davis whose practice focuses on representing homeowner associations. Get his perspective from that side of the aisle as we discuss all things HOA.
Listen in or watch on your favorite streaming platform.
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Devastating wildfires are sweeping through Southern California. CoreLogic
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America’s top 15 cities for quality of life. Realtor
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Mortgage rates rise again, but economists predict market improvements. Realtor
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British Columbia, Canada, imposes new house-flipping tax. Global News
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Housing affordability didn’t worsen in 2024 — the first time in four years. Redfin
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4. Closing Thought: Start 2025 with a clean desk
We collect historical political clutter and memorabilia (as many lawyers apparently do). The other day, I was in the home office and was reminded of this old commemorative ashtray from the Carter inauguration. I thought it was fitting for this week.
A lawyer colleague in Chicago taught a mini-course on why keeping your desk clean of clutter is important.
Why it matters: Our brains are reflected in our e-mail inboxes, unread social media direct messages, unreturned texts, and — yes — cluttered desks.
The chaos of unread professional magazines and articles, unfiled paperwork, and dusty mess of office supplies on top of a desk are constant reminders of things we need to do.
It’s like having a child screaming at you that it’s hungry, tired, and bored all at once, but you are ignoring it as it bores into your psyche day after day.
If, like me, you also have ADHD, a messy stack of papers and incomplete work strewn across a desk can be both a distraction in that you feel the need to jump from one thing on the desk to the other without ever completing anything, or you feel overwhelmed and do nothing because your brain is gridlocked at where to begin.
The bottom line: A messy desk kills any productivity you may have been capable of.
What’s next: Set aside one hour to organize your desk.
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First, put things into piles of what will be discarded, delegated, or acted upon.
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Next, toss or shred the “discard” pile.
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Then, label what is being delegated to whom, even if it’s just to scan it into an electronic file.
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Finally, determine what needs to be done and put the tasks on your calendar.
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Calendaring tasks rather than keeping a list of tasks to be completed someday is a magic trick for productivity.
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If you have trouble scheduling your tasks and setting deadlines, you can use an app like Motion that automatically syncs with your existing electronic calendar. You enter the tasks, their duration, and the deadline. The program then does the rest, even moving the tasks if you miss the deadline.
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And for all those loose office supplies, get drawer organizers and put it all away.
Out of sight truly is out of mind.
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Be on the lookout for our next issue! 👋
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