Photo Source: via Instagram @patticakewagner

Everyone wants in with the real estate business and that now includes Facebook through its Marketplace feature. While available to homeowners to list their home, Facebook is primarily focusing on the rental market. With a 300% increase in Marketplace search volume over the last year, the popular social media platform is excited to “explore a variety of new opportunities” and optimize the consumer experience.

The release of CoreLogic’s Loan Performance Insights report for August 2017 showed the solidity of the housing market. In fact, with seriously delinquent homes in foreclosure dropping to 0.6% from 0.9% last year, it’ll be hard to see even lower numbers. With seriously delinquent loans and loans 30 days or more past due both holding steady for the month, that’s another good sign. These are hard levels to beat—that’s good! That being said, we’re interested in seeing the September report next month.

After the recent natural disasters came an 8.1% increase in sales in the third quarter from a year prior at Home Depot, leading the company to increase their fiscal forecast for the following year.

Housing prices might be at pre “boom” levels but this time around it’s the healthy kind that’s fueled by supply-and-demand not an oversupply from “artificial” demand and poor lending practices. Housing is good, no wonder Facebook wants in with the market.

You may have seen headlines of renting taking over the housing market, particularly single-family housing but it’s more of an inventory issue. Rentals are becoming popular as large firms buy up cheap homes and turn them into rental units and housing firms build single-family homes (townhomes) with the intention of renting them out not selling them. This is more popular in smaller markets. Sometimes, it’s not about demand for rent vs. own, it’s about demand for a home in general. It’s also about the local income—some people might not qualify or can’t afford to buy but they can rent.