WSJ.com: Home inventory up 1.3% from last month

As reported on in the Wall Street Journal today, the total number of home listings in 29 metro areas at the end of April increased 1.3% from a month earlier. Here is the full article.

$100M in customer rebates and counting!

Late last month, we reached a huge milestone. Since the company was founded in 1999, we’ve given our customers back over $100,000,000 in rebates. Coupled with a 95% customer satisfaction rate, we’re very proud to have reached this milestone!

Here is a breakdown of what our customers have spent their rebates on:

What would you do with $100 Million?

To celebrate, we’re giving away a 52” LCD television. All you need to do is to tell us what you would do with $100M!

Simply create a video that is 15 to 120 seconds long and upload it to the ZipRealty contest page on YouTube. All contest entries must be received by June 15, 2008. Anyone is eligible to enter. Here are the official rules to the contest.

We want to thank the tens of thousands of clients who got us here. We are looking forward to seeing your video submissions. Dream big and maybe you’ll win a TV!

What do home buyers think of the current real estate market?

Based on our research, today’s buyers remain bearish on prices, with 61% anticipating declines over the next six months, while wild differences exist among ZipRealty’s markets:

• 82% of buyers in Los Angeles think prices will decline
• 24% of buyers in Charlotte think prices will decline

Interestingly, buyers and sellers are almost exactly in sync in terms of how long they think the decline will last: 42% of each group thinks it will last 12 months or less, while 43% of buyers and 42% of sellers think the decline will last 1-2 years.

About our survey

These findings were collected in March as part of our quarterly market perception survey. This quarter’s survey, sent to prospective buyers who registered on our site in January and February generated 4570 responses. The answers in the table above were based on the question “what do you think will happen with home prices in your local real estate market over the next 6 months?”.

Stay tuned for insights into what today’s buyers are looking for in a home – information that should be particularly useful to the sellers out there!