The big story this month is the National Association of Realtors cracking down on pocket listings. You may have noticed these as “Coming Soon” listings. We’ll tell you why they are a problem and what the association plans to do about them. Plus, is lower than normal inventory just the new normal in the Pacific Northwest? Some experts think so.

NAR Cracking Down on “Coming Soon” Listings 

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) is cracking down on “coming soon” or “off-market” real estate listings, which generally allow sellers to unofficially solicit buyers under the radar without having the number of days it is listed count against them when they go on the market.    

Housing Starts Rising in Oregon

The pace of new home construction appears to be slowing in and around Portland, he wrote, but seems to be picking up in the rest of Oregon. “A bit more growth in new construction, when coupled with a slowing population outlook, should result in a somewhat better balance in the housing market,” Josh Lehner with the state’s Office of Economic Analysis wrote.

Virtual Reality is Infiltrating Real Estate in New Ways

The use of 3D virtual tours in real estate is not new, but until recently it was too expensive for most of the real estate market. Now Matterport, a tech company founded in the Bay Area in 2011, is preparing to make its spatial-capture software available to a much larger audience.

Lower Inventories May Be the New Normal for the PNW

“’Tis the season for the number of homes for sale to start dropping, and we don’t expect to see a significant influx of new inventory until spring," OB Jacobi, president of Windermere Real Estate, said. "That said, there are still plenty of buyers out there, so this drop in listings will lead to increased competition and will likely cause home price growth to increase modestly through the end of the year.”

Online Real Estate Investing Platforms are Leveling the Field for Ordinary Investors

Thanks to some recent changes in SEC regulations, normal everyday people can now invest in low-risk high-return real estate portfolios that were previously only available to the extremely wealthy. What’s more, there are a number of new online real estate investing platforms that provide high tech tools that make everything way easier than you might think.

Winning a Bidding War

Want to be sure that you’ll place the winning bid a home? Then you better be prepared to pay in cash. A new report from real-estate brokerage Redfin examined the most successful strategies to use when dealing with competing bids for homes. Far and away, the best approach was to make an all-cash offer, researchers found.

Zillow Wants to Be the Amazon of Real Estate

With Zillow Offers, a seller can click on an ad and get an offer on their property within 48 hours. Instead of going through the typical months-long process to sell a home, the seller can simply transact with Zillow and be done with it.