Bright MLS Economist Looking Long at RISMedia's CEO & Leadership Exchange

Above: Bright MLS Chief Economist Dr. Lisa Sturtevant

In 2020, everything changed for real estate—truly, everything. From how and where agents operated, to where people wanted to live, conventional wisdom just didn’t apply anymore. Traditionally hot markets cooled while remote work and virus fears sent buyers fleeing for small towns. Long-simmering affordability and inventory issues spurred non-traditional living arrangements, and older homeowners found ways to age in place as they refinanced or clung to low interest rates.

More than three years later, though, the question is—are we living in a brave new world, or reverting to the old, familiar one? And even more importantly—which scenario is your business built for?

It is these questions that Dr. Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist for Bright MLS, will be answering for a storied audience of real estate thought leaders this September at RISMedia’s CEO & Leadership Exchange, held at the historic Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C.

In her keynote address, titled “How the Pandemic Changed Everything—And Nothing—About the Housing Market,” Sturtevant says the answers and issues are deeply complex, and also foundational to building a real estate business for the future.

“What I’m really interested in, personally, is—as we’ve emerged from the last couple of years, there’s a lot of talk about how the housing market has changed in some fundamental ways,” Sturtevant says. “Are the changes that we saw, are they permanent? Is that how the housing market is going to be characterized going forward?”

In a year that has already shown signs of introducing new wrinkles, from economic turmoil to the emergence of new technologies, Sturtevant says it is important to understand all the nuances, as well as how housing markets react compared to other industries. Tracing pandemic norms and knowing how, where and if they will continue to shape behaviors over the next decade is necessary for anyone to build success for the long term.

Sturtevant says she plans to cover everything from the emergence of Gen Z as a home-buying force to brand-new models for homeownership that emerged in the last couple years.

“What about the next generation?” she asks. “We know they’re going to be coming into the housing market, frankly, just as baby boomers are offloading a ton of houses. So what does that mean for the 2030s market? I think it’s going to look really different.”

Still a couple months away from the event, Sturtevant promises that her thoughts and insights will evolve as issues like student loan payments resolve, or as other housing data is revealed. At the same time, though, she says that many of the most important aspects of the post-pandemic market center on longer-term factors: demographics, technology, housing supply.

But even these foundational components of real estate markets were rocked by the events of the last three years. Knowing right now how to react and adapt to these changes, which manifest on a timescale of years or even decades, is what will prepare a real estate business for the future.

“We’re human beings,” Sturtevant says. “We look back to the very near past in order to think about what the future’s going to look like. But I think for our industry, it’s probably better to look back a little bit further…what should brokers be paying attention to if they want to make sure they’re planning a business to be responsive to the kind of housing market we’re going to have in the next two years?”

RISMedia’s 35th annual CEO & Leadership Exchange will gather the industry’s top minds to discuss the most critical trends and issues impacting the year so far, and outline strategies for success in the fourth quarter and into 2024. More than 100 brokerage executives and industry experts featured in over 25 panel discussions and presentations will help you make sense of what’s transpired so far in 2023, and share tangible advice for defining your own destiny moving forward.

For the complete agenda and speaker lineup, please visit our event page. Space is limited, so reserve your spot today.

2023 RISMedia CEO & Leadership Exchange sponsors include:

Title Sponsor

RE/MAX

Diamond Sponsors

Real Estate Webmasters
Realty ONE Group
Colibri Real Estate

Master Sponsors

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices
Bright MLS
Buffini & Company
Constellation1
EXIT Realty
Inside Real Estate
Lone Wolf Technologies
National Association of REALTORS®