As the industry is finding itself up against a tight inventory and the market so competitive, brokerages are offering incentives for clients to work with them.

Realogy hopes to attract more prospects with a new client incentive for customers who might be interested in a “vaxication” as well as a home. Combining the interests in a new home with many people’s desires for an overdue vacation, Realogy launched its Miles from Home Realty Rewards program with American Airlines. The Miles from Home program offers members of American Airlines AAdvantage loyalty program an opportunity to earn 2,000 AAdvantage miles for every $10,000 of the sale or purchase price of a home.

Realogy hopes the program will provide another source to generate more leads to its affiliated agents and brokers. Realogy’s brands include Coldwell Banker, Century 21, Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, Sotheby’s International Realty, and others.

The miles program is a relaunch of a program that Realogy offered in 1996. “We are strategically relaunching the Miles from Home Realty Rewards Program with American Airlines … to make the most of consumers’ growing appetite for travel and to connect even more highly-interested home buyers and sellers with Realogy-affiliated brokers and agents,” says Katrina Halmkamp, president and CEO of Realogy Leads Group.

Some brokerages are tying their incentives directly to the community. For example, Realty ONE Group launched a program this year, ONE Tree, ONE World, pledging to plant one tree for every home bought or sold by its real estate professionals in 2021. The goal is to plant 111,111 trees. “ONE Tree, ONE World gives us an opportunity to make a direct and significant impact on our communities around the world in more than 111,111 ways,” says Kuba Jewgieniew, CEO and founder of Realty ONE Group.

The median existing-home price for a single-family home in March jumped to a record high of $334,500, according to data from the National Association of REALTORS®. Meanwhile, the median sales price of a newly built home was $330,800, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

New homes are traditionally more expensive than used homes. The scenario in which existing homes sell for more than a new home hasn’t occurred in more than 15 years, CNBC reports.

However, that doesn’t necessarily mean existing homes are more expensive, economists say.

“On a per-square-foot basis, within comparable markets, a new home is still priced higher than an existing home,” Robert Dietz, chief economist at the National Association of Home Builders, told CNBC.

Available housing in the existing-home sector lately may be skewing toward the higher price brackets. For example, the number of existing homes that sold in March priced between $100,000 and $250,000 fell by 10% compared with a year earlier. On the other hand, the number of homes priced between $750,000 and $1 million that sold increased by 82% compared with a year earlier, according to NAR data.

New-home construction is increasingly drawing more first-time home buyers, and some builders are starting to build slightly more entry-level homes to meet demand. First-time buyers were responsible for 43% of new-home sales in February, according to the National Association of Home Builders, higher than the 31% of existing-home sales first-time buyers purchased.

Regardless, the higher price tags for existing or new homes haven’t deterred home buyers.

“Consumers are facing much higher home prices, rising mortgage rates, and falling affordability; however, buyers are still actively in the market,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of REALTORS®.

The U.S. housing market is on a hot streak with double-digit annual gains in home prices, bidding wars, and surging buyer demand. That type of soaring housing market is prompting more “bubble” fears in some corners, but economists say the housing market isn’t getting overinflated.

“We have strong conviction that we are not experiencing a bubble in U.S. housing,” Vishwanath Tirupattur, a Morgan Stanley strategist, wrote in a note to clients this week.

Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the National Association of REALTORS®, agrees. He told Axios last month: “This is not a bubble. It is simply lack of supply.”

The rapid rise in prices may be concerning to home shoppers, however. The median selling price for a home is up $35,000 compared to a year ago, which is the fastest-paced increase since 2006, Tirupattur said.

But this isn’t 2006. Housing inventories are low, credit remains tight, and lenders aren’t issuing risky loans at rates like they did back then. Product risk—such as from mortgages with introductory periods, teaser rates, or balloon payments—comprised about 40% of the mortgage market between 2004 to 2006. More recently, those factors are now at only 2% of the mortgage market, according to Morgan Stanley.

Also, the housing market has a record low number of homes available for sale. At the end of March, there were 1.07 million homes available for sale, according to NAR data. For comparison, during the housing bubble, in July 2007, there were more than four times that—4 million homes available for sale.

Still, while home prices won’t keep climbing at the current pace. They aren’t expected to fall either, economists say.

“We are not at all suggesting that home price appreciation will maintain its current torrid pace,” Tirupattur writes. “Home prices will continue to rise, but more gradually.”

Buyers who purchase newly constructed homes are paying more not only because of intense competition in the market but also surging lumber prices. Record-breaking growth for the cost of lumber is pressing on builders’ budgets and prompting them to pass along price increases to buyers.

The increase in lumber prices over the past year has added $35,872 to the price of an average new single-family home and $12,966 to the price of an average new multifamily home. The latter translates to an extra $119 per month in rent for apartment dwellers, according to new housing data from the National Association of Home Builders.

Some builders report slowing production due to the rising building costs. Still, single-family housing starts jumped 41% in March compared to a year earlier, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. More than a quarter of single-family homes that were on the market in the first quarter of this year were new construction—the highest share on record, according to Redfin research.

But lumber prices—up a whopping 340% compared to a year ago, according to Random Lengths, a wood products industry tracking firm—threaten that market share. For a new home, lumber is often used for framing as well as for cabinets, doors, windows, flooring, and decks.

Builders are facing rising costs for other building materials, too. For example, year-over-year prices are up nearly 7% for drywall, 27% for copper—the price of which set a record high this month—and 11% for land prices. Prices for single lots especially have jumped this year due to high buyer demand and low supply.

“There’s a literal land grab going on as builders are scooping up lots to better match housing supply with demand,” Ali Wolf, chief economist at Zonda, told CNBC. “The lot supply shortage is real, and it is causing prices to rise and builders to move further into the suburbs.”

With rising home prices, some markets have lost affordability, but a robust economy promises to help housing thrive in many areas of the country.

Realtor.com® and The Wall Street Journal identified the top markets with growing economies and booming housing markets in their brand-new joint Emerging Housing Markets Index. The index evaluates the nation’s 300 largest metros to identify the areas with strong housing demand, rising home prices, and strengthening economies, including jobs, restaurants, and retail.

“The areas that top our emerging housing markets list are places that have weathered the pandemic relatively well,” said Danielle Hale, realtor.com®’s chief economist. “Their economies are generally doing better than other markets, and they’re attracting a lot of home shoppers from other areas—likely, in part, due to the relatively widespread work-from-home flexibility in response to the pandemic.”

The markets in the top 10 emerging housing markets list are not cheap. Median list prices have appreciated 27%, on average, in the past year in these markets compared to 14% nationwide, realtor.com® notes. In the 300 metros analyzed, home prices averaged $519,100—about 42% higher than the $366,100 median price for the national market. But researchers said these markets command higher prices because buyers there can afford them. Unemployment is lower and wages tend to be higher in these metros.

“By design, these are great places to live,” Hale said. “Many of these areas are smaller, and they all boast great nearby activities—places for hiking, boating, and enjoying the outdoors. Housing trends in these markets have fundamentals that should mean buying a home is a good investment.”

The following are the top emerging real estate markets of 2021, according to the index:

1. Coeur d’Alene, Idaho: $799,000 (average home price)
2. Austin, Texas: $520,000
3. Springfield, Ohio: $144,900
4. Billings, Mont.: $428,500
5. Spokane, Wash.: $434,900
6. Lafayette, Ind.: $297,450
7. Reno, Nev.: $562,000
8. Concord, N.H.: $362,450
9. Manchester, N.H.: $419,950
10. Santa Cruz, Calif.: $1.22 million

Many American households are feeling richer, sitting on the nest egg they’ve built during the pandemic. Those savings may be released into the economy in new spending this spring and summer, which will bode well for the already surging housing market.

Personal savings increased to a 21% annual rate in the first quarter of this year, reaching the second-highest level on record, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Many Americans saved cash from the federal government’s COVID-19 stimulus programs, and those who have remained employed have been able to save money after sheltering in for months, decreasing spending on gas, clothes, entertainment, and travel.

“Consumers have lots of cash available thanks to stimulus and extremely high savings and will be looking to spend, especially on services,” Gus Faucher, chief economist of PNC Financial Services, told MarketWatch. “Rising vaccination rates and a greater willingness to go out in public will also support consumer spending.”

The reopening of the economy and federal stimulus funds led to a 6.4% annual GDP gain in the first quarter, the government reported this week. “The economic recovery now is quicker and stronger compared to the recovery [following the Great Recession] thanks to a quick and powerful dose of monetary expansion and strong fiscal spending that propped up consumer and residential investment spending,” Gay Cororaton, research economist at the National Association of REALTORS®, writes for the association’s Economists’ Outlook blog. A strong housing market also likely will continue in 2021 with sustained economic growth, declining unemployment, and mortgage rates hovering at historic lows, Cororaton notes.

Consumer spending accounts for 70% of the economy. The National Association of REALTORS® predicts GDP growth to reach 4.5% in 2021, mortgage rates to average 3.2%, and existing-home sales to increase 10% to 6.2 million units.