The second season of “First-Time Buyer,” which shows REALTORS® guiding their clients on their home buyer journey, is now available to stream on Hulu. The show is produced by the National Association of REALTORS®.

The eight-episode season follows a different couple, family, or individual through the process of buying a home.

“‘First-Time Buyer’ gives viewers a genuine inside look into the emotions our clients face as they go through the homebuying process,” says Leslie Rouda Smith, NAR’s president. “This series does a fantastic job of showing how REALTORS® help their clients navigate all the challenges that can pop up during a transaction to ensure a successful and secure first home purchase.”

The new season features REALTORS® from Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

“The appeal in these stories is that they feature people that you can relate to,” says Alicia Bailey, NAR’s head of production. “They face many of the common first-timer fears that can often prevent someone from starting or continuing their home search. We also see firsthand how REALTORS®’ expertise is invaluable when facing the unexpected. Sometimes you need an expert to help make a milestone decision with confidence.”

“First-Time Buyer” is an extension of NAR’s consumer advertising campaign, which highlights the REALTOR® brand by spotlighting REALTORS®’ commitment to the association’s Code of Ethics and how that distinguishes REALTORS® from non-member real estate agents and listing apps.

All episodes from season one of “First-Time Buyer” are available to stream for free on YouTube and Facebook and at https://firsttimebuyer.realtor.

More single-family and condo homes were flipped in the third quarter compared to the second quarter. Home flips accounted for 5.7% of home sales in the third quarter, according to the Q3 2021 U.S. Home Flipping Report released by ATTOM Data Solutions. But while flipping activity is edging higher, profits aren’t. Read more: Home Flipping Rises, Even as Profits Shrink

Still, in some areas of the country, home flipping remains a hot business. Researchers define a flip as a situation in which the purchase and the sale of a property occur within 12 months.

ATTOM Data Solutions reports the following 10 U.S. counties saw the highest home flipping rates in the third quarter.

1. Camden County, N.C.: 15.9%
2. Lumpkin County, Ga.: 15.1%
3. Logan County, Ky.: 14.7%
4. Canadian County, Okla.: 14.4%
5. Adams County, Ohio: 13.4%
6. Iberville County, La.: 12.5%
7. Mccurtain County, Okla.: 12.5%
8. Palo Pinto County, Texas: 12.4%
9. Fannin County, Ga.: 12.2%
10. Dekalb County, Tenn.: 12.1%

In the third quarter, home flippers took an average of 147 days to complete the transactions. In the following counties, home flippers are quickest with their flips, taking the shortest average time for a transaction:

• Marion County, Ore.: 23 average days to flip
• Cape May County, N.J.: 37 days
• Lumpkin County, Ga.: 38 days
• Liberty County, Ga.: 42 days
• Kauai County, Hawaii: 48 days

Beware of a home that smells too clean. That warning comes from a real estate agent who posted a recent TikTok video, under her username @capecchiandco, that has since gone viral and been widely covered by the media. She shared how a bleach smell can be a red flag when touring homes for sale. It’s a lesson her buyers learned a few years ago after purchasing a home with a very strong chlorine-like smell.

“Every time we went there, it had a strong chlorine smell,” she said in the TikTok video. “So you’re kind of like, ‘What is [the homeowner] trying to cover up here?’”

The buyers had a home inspection but it didn’t turn up anything major. They assumed the potent, clean smell was the result of the owners getting the house extra cleaning for showings.

It wasn’t until after the buyers closed on the home that they discovered why the bleach smell had been so strong and what it had been covering up.

The subfloors were completely soaked in animal urine from the previous owners’ pets.

The agent says the new owners ended up having to replace all of the floors, subfloors, and trim.

The agent’s warning to others: Next time you tour a home listing with a strong chlorine-like scent, take that as a red flag and find out why before you buy.

Home buyers may be facing less competition, but they are also finding fewer homes for sale.

In November, 59.5% of home offers written by Redfin real estate professionals reported facing competition, the lowest in 11 months, according to Redfin’s competition index. That’s a sharp drop from the 74.6% peak reached in April.

Make no mistake, bidding wars are still happening and buyers should still be prepared to face one. But the lessening in buyer competition lately appears to be following a more seasonal pattern for the housing market. “It’s typical for competition to ease in the winter months as more families take time off for the holidays,” says Daryl Fairweather, Redfin’s chief economist. “While competition waned in November, it was still higher than a year earlier, which is a sign that demand will be strong in the new year.”

The markets with the highest number of bidding wars in November, according to Redfin’s index, are Richmond, Va. (80% of offers faced a bidding war); Salt Lake City (73.8%); San Diego (72%); Honolulu (71.1%); and Dallas (70.6%).

Many buyers are still losing out to the competition during their home search. REALTORS® report that on average, their buyer clients have made two prior unsuccessful offers on a home, according to the REALTORS® Confidence Index Survey from October, the latest available. Forty-two percent of offers are above the list price, lower than 55% in June this year, NAR’s report notes.

The following chart from October’s REALTORS® Confidence Index Survey shows the average number of offers received on sold homes.

In a new report, the real estate firm Walker & Dunlop calls it “the golden age for multifamily.”

High rents in the apartment sector are expected to continue in the new year as demand remains strong. Potential home buyers who have been shut out from the competitive housing market are turning to rentals in swarms. Property owners are expected to see record profits in 2022, predicts Green Street, a commercial real estate analytics firm.

Strong demand has allowed building owners to continue to increase their rents. Asking rents have climbed nearly 20% during the 12-month period in November, realtor.com®’s data shows.

The increase in rents is expected to lead to a 13.5% uptick in net operating income for building owners, which is expected to outpace the office, retail, lodging, and student housing sectors, according to the Green Street report.

But will tenants be able to weather the higher costs? “In a lot of these places, minimum wages have been rising, but not enough to keep pace with the rent growth,” Danielle Hale, chief economist at realtor.com®, told The Wall Street Journal.

Higher payments could prompt more people to move in with roommates or family. However, so far, property owners say they haven’t seen that happen.

“We see people staying put,” Thomas Grimes Jr., chief operating officer of Mid-America, a firm that specializes in middle-income buildings in the Sunbelt, said during an October earnings call. The company has reported it was raising rents by 13% for its renewing tenants.

Realtor.com® forecasts that asking rents will rise in 2022 at a rate of more than 7%. The cities with the highest gains in 2021 are expected to remain strong in the new year, including Austin, Texas; Miami; Memphis, Tenn.; and Jacksonville, Fla.

For the second quarter in a row, home flipping was on the rise as investors look to take advantage of quickly rising home prices. However, they’re not seeing higher profits from their flips.

Home flipping comprised 5.7% of all home sales in the third quarter, up from 5.2% a year ago, according to the “2021 U.S. Home Flipping Report” released by ATTOM Data Solutions. The typical raw profits remain below where they were a year ago, and profit margins have decreased to their lowest point since early 2011, the report notes.

Researchers define a house flip as an arms-length transaction that occurred in the purchase and sale of the same property within the last 12 months.

Profit margins declined in the third quarter as prices on flipped homes continued to rise more slowly than they did compared to investors’ original purchase price of the properties, researchers note.

In the third quarter, the gross profit on typical home flipping transactions—the difference between the median sales price and the median paid by investors—was at $68,847. That is down 1.6% compared to the $70,000 level recorded in the third quarter of 2020.

The decrease in the typical profit margin from the third quarter of 2020 to the same period this year was the largest annual drop since early in 2009 when the housing markets were reeling from the Great Recession, researchers note.

Still, investors are netting about a 32.3% return on investment compared to the original acquisition price.

“Home flipping produced another round of competing trends in the third quarter of this year as more investors got in on the action but got less out of it,” says Todd Teta, chief product officer at ATTOM. “It’s clear that declining fortunes weren’t enough to repel investors amid a typical scenario of 32 percent profits before expenses on deals that usually take an average of five months to complete. We will see over the coming months whether the amount they can make on these quick turnarounds will still be enough to keep luring them into the home-flipping business or start pushing them elsewhere.”

Here are some additional insights from the latest home flipping report:

• The median $281,847 resale price of homes flipped in the third quarter generated a gross flipping profit of $68,847 above the median investor purchase price of $213,000.
• The markets with the largest returns on investment during the third quarter on home flips were in: Buffalo, N.Y. (ROI of 103.6%); Oklahoma City, Okla. (127.6%); Florence, S.C. (125.8%); Pittsburgh, Pa. (124.6%) and Scranton, Pa. (123.2%).
• The metro areas with the smallest profit margins on a typical home flip in the third quarter were: Laredo, Texas (7.5% return); Boise, Idaho (8%); Gulfport, Miss. (8.4%); Lubbock, Texas (10%); and Portland, Ore. (10.1%).
• Homes flipped in the third quarter took an average of 147 days to complete the transactions, the shortest turnaround in more than a decade.