I’ve learned that to really succeed, you have to be a bit of a self-promoter too.

If you learn to do it right, there are tons of opportunities to raise your profile in your local market to make sure the client pool never dries up (without having a TV camera follow you around for 3 months).

Here are six things Josh and I are doing right now to connect with our next seller clients.

1. Separate from the pack 

You sell real estate. So what?

If you can’t answer that question, your prospects won’t be able to either. The “so what” answer is the thing that sets you apart from the rest of the agents in your market. Knowing it is crucial for carving out a niche and becoming a power agent.

And guess what – it also makes marketing a lot easier. When you answer the “so what” question, you can make the call on what your billboards, ads, or online marketing should say.

Are you the agent to the stars? The first-timers best friend? The real estate tech expert of Silicon Valley? Find and market to that niche and the business will follow.

Tip: Don’t just focus on the clients you want. Figure out who’s in the following you already have. Growing an existing audience is a lot easier than building a new one.

2. Follow up when everyone else is finished

I’ve seen too many agents, clients, loan officers, and other partners wash their hands of each other once a deal is done until it’s time for the next closing.

Our post-closing follow-up plan for clients goes a long way toward connecting with new clients and developing repeat buyer and seller relationships.

We focus on multiple touch-points including:

• Recommendation requests – The sooner, the better. When we catch clients while they’re still on the new home high, it makes for better online reviews.
• Check-in Call – If you really want to be someone’s agent for life, act like it. We take a few minutes to follow up via phone to see how they’re enjoying the new digs. While we’re chatting, I never fail to remind them that w’d be happy to help any friends or family they know who are looking to sell.
• Congratulate them on the Web – Buying or selling is big news. Ok, so your clients might not end up on the Trulia Luxe Living Blog, but you can still give them their own headline on social media or your website. Check your client’s social media comfort level, and if they’re savvy and comfortable sharing, doing so is a great way to expand your network for free.

3. Hard sell your success

It’s easier to convert a seller prospect into a client when they’ve seen the proof that we can sell. That’s why we make sure our sold listings are seen online. (By the way, did you know you can feature your sold listings on your Trulia profile?)

If you’re not showing your transaction history online, you’re just giving buyers and sellers a reason to pass you up.

4. Pay attention to what you’re saying on the web

Today a big portion of our business is coming from social media. Yet, even when we get direct messages and Facebook chats about doing business, eventually most people end up on our website.

Take a look at your website and online profiles to find out if they’re saying “the right things.” If the contact forms and buttons are hidden throughout your site, you’re saying, “don’t contact me.” (And I’m going to take a wild guess that’s not the message you were aiming for.)

A little bit of time spent improving your presence online can go a long way toward bringing in new business.

5. Find the next hot niche and market to it now

I’m a trendy guy, but when it comes to attracting clients, it’s not always about what’s now. Thinking and being ready for what’s next is one of the best business investments you can make.

What are some trends I’m predicting? Multiple offers today means the market’s making way for previously skittish sellers to jump in. Tomorrow’s serious buyer may have questionable credit today.

But don’t take my word for it – niche marketing doesn’t require a psychic. Ask yourself:

• Who in my market is “not quite ready” to buy or sell? And, why?
• What’s the biggest trend in the market right now and what’s the inverse?

Finding needs and marketing to those niches has been a great way for us to generate new business both in the short and long term.

6. Connect with the busiest agent you know and help

Here’s the reality: in this business, no agent starts out a power agent. If you’re new or find your seller pool is starting to dry up, connect with the busiest agent you know and ask about referrals.  When we’re busy and can choose which clients we work with, the ones we don’t have time for still need an agent.

If you really want to build more business, don’t be afraid to be an understudy for the movers and shakers in your market. That’s actually how Josh and I got started.

There you have it. That’s what we’re doing to win sellers in today’s market. We’d love to hear what you’re doing to win sellers too.

• Refinancings Plunge as Bond Yields Rise (WSJ)
• Home Loan Rates Near 4% Send Buyers Scurrying (Bloomberg)
• Buying Cheaper than Renting ‘Til Mortgage Rates Hit 10.5% (Trulia Trends)

Plus more on investors’ role in the housing recovery. They’re pulling back as prices keep rising:

• Investors Cooling on ‘REO-to-Rent’ (CNBC)

“It was a total bachelor pad. It has a mini fridge and a mini freezer!” said Amanda.

After sticking it out for one too many years, Amanda decided to start looking for a home for the couple to buy shortly after they officially got married. It was time to say goodbye to the bachelor pad once and for all!

Once homeownership was in sight, Amanda and John decided to leave the city life and settle for the suburb of Lafayette, CA. To see what was on the market they used various different real estate web sites, their favorite being Trulia.

“After using tons of other options, Trulia had the best interface and gave the best results,” shared Amanda.

Amanda would keep Trulia open throughout the day – even at work (shhhhh) – and scan listings when she had a free minute. Once she started poking around the site she realized that they needed to broaden their search from single-family homes to include townhomes.

“Our search was pretty narrow at first and nothing was coming back that we liked. Trulia made it easy to adjust criteria and track new types of homes. That really helped a lot.”

Then, one day, it happened. Amanda found a great candidate – however, it was just not love at first sight. The home was dated and needed work. Amanda and John felt they needed that extra push to seal the deal before moving forward with the fixer-upper.

“We wanted to put an offer on the home but not before researching the neighborhood first. That would really make it for us. I turned to Trulia Local to see if there was public transportation nearby, if it had good schools and was close proximity to downtown.”

After researching the surrounding areas, the couple felt confident about moving forward with the home. They put their bachelor pad condo up for sale, submitted an offer on the new property, and days later were the proud new owners of a home near Lafayette, CA.

“We’re really happy. It’s really the quality Trulia provides that makes it so user friendly.”

Have you and your clients found our site to be useful during your home search? If so, tell us by emailing MyTruliaSuccess@trulia.com.

Rates are likely to keep rising, but how far must rates rise before buying a home starts to look expensive relative to renting? To answer this, we updated our Rent vs. Buy analysis with the latest asking prices and rents from March, April, and May 2013. Following our standard approach, we calculated the cost of buying and renting for identical sets of properties, including maintenance, insurance, taxes, closing costs, down payment, sales proceeds, and, of course, the monthly mortgage payment on a 30-year fixed-rate loan with 20% down and monthly rent. We assume people will stay in their homes for 7 years, deduct their mortgage interest and property tax payments at the 25% tax bracket, and get modest home price appreciation (see the detailed methodology and example here). Here’s what we found:

Buying remains cheaper than renting so long as mortgage rates are below 10.5%. At 3.9%, the current 30-year fixed rate according to Freddie Mac, buying is 41% cheaper than renting nationally. With a 5% mortgage rate, buying is still 34% cheaper than renting nationally. Mortgage rates would have to rise a huge amount – to 10.5% – to tip the math in favor of renting, which isn’t impossible. Rates were that high throughout the 1980s, but have been consistently below 10.5% since May 1990.

Each local market, of course, has its own mortgage rate “tipping point” when renting becomes cheaper than buying a home. At 3.9%, buying is cheaper than renting in all of the 100 largest metros, which means the tipping point is above 3.9% everywhere. The tipping point is lowest in San Jose, which would tip in favor of renting if rates reach 5.2%. It’s between 5% and 6% in San Francisco and Honolulu, and between 6% and 7% in New York and Orange County, CA.

But for 78 of the 100 largest metros, the tipping point is 10% or higher. In fact the tipping point is above 20% in Cleveland, Memphis, Detroit, and several other metros in the Midwest and South.

Of course, the tipping point also depends on how long you plan to stay in your next home (we assume 7 years) and whether you itemize your deductions (we assume you do). For instance, if you don’t itemize, or if the mortgage interest and property tax deductions were eliminated entirely, buying would still be 29% cheaper than renting at a mortgage rate of 3.9%, and the tipping point when renting becomes cheaper than buying would be 7.5%.

But just because buying is cheaper than renting, it doesn’t mean you can buy. Lots of people who want to buy don’t have the downpayment or can’t get a mortgage. Even people who can swing it financially might not be able to buy right away, before rates rise further, because they might not find the home they want quickly with inventory still so tight.

So if the recent increase in mortgage rates doesn’t change the rent-versus-buy equation substantially, why does it matter? The main effect is to reduce the demand for refinancing. Unlike homebuying, refinancing is a relatively straightforward financial decision: although refinancing has upfront costs, refinancing doesn’t require finding a home, thinking hard about your lifestyle, or moving. Since rates have been low for so long, many people who were able to refinance, already have. As a result, the demand for refinancing is now dropping.

For people who haven’t yet refinanced – and for people looking to buy – rising rates do make housing more expensive. Rates are now on the rise and are likely to keep rising, thanks to the strengthening economy and the Fed eventually trying less hard to keep rates low. But it will take big rate increases to turn off prospective homebuyers. At today’s prices and rents, rates would have to rise to levels we haven’t seen in 20 years before renting is cheaper than buying a home on average across the country.

So what’s next? It’s time to talk with your client about the selling tactics that will really get them to the finish line – and in the time and for the price they want.

One of the hardest parts of this early sale sit down, whether you’re selling in Beverly Hills or anywhere else, is the staging chat. You know great staging is critical but getting your sellers on board can be a challenge.

After spending a ton of time decorating and personalizing their home, most clients often aren’t too keen on undoing their hard work.

Here are a few of my tips and tricks to help clients see why I know best:

1. Be blunt: Give honest feedback

Remember: every seller thinks they’re the expert on their home, even after hiring you. If you actually want their listing to close quickly, you need to be upfront with your feedback.

That antique doll collection over by the window? While it’s you sellers’ favorite accessory, to most buyers its probably a distraction. Be tactful, but don’t hold back.

Smart sellers will appreciate your insight and hop on board with your plan. Others will only appreciate it down the road after they see their way doesn’t bring in the right offers.

When I get pushback, I point to my sold home history and other selling successes to show my clients I know what I’m talking about.

2. Be inspired: Tour before (or while) you talk

I’ve found that one of the best ways to show sellers what their home lacks is to have the staging chat while touring other listings.

Seeing what other homes have to offer not only supports your suggestions, but may inspire some creative ideas.

At the very least, I send my sellers to a few open houses. This helps them see how their home measures up to others and give them an idea of what it’s really going to take to compete in today’s market.

3. Be complete: Stage from the outside in

Like yours, most of my sellers are real estate media obsessed – addicted to HGTV, Million Dollar Listing, Trulia, or one of the many other shows or sites out there. This is good because it means most aren’t completely oblivious to the fact that selling will take some effort on their part.

The downside is that my clients are used to focusing on the insides of houses. I mean, if you’re watching house hunters the front of the
home is on the screen for 10 seconds tops. Even on Trulia you only find one shot of the front of a house most of the time.
But, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: first impressions matter. I start my staging talk outside and work my way in. Don’t let your seller ignore the importance of curb appeal.

I don’t care if your seller’s listing has the biggest master bedroom ever; if the outside paint is peeling you’ll have a tough time getting buyers in the door.

4. Be clutter-free: Have your clients pre-pack

I hate to say it, but most buyers don’t have an imagination. The more stuff they see, the less they can envision themselves in a home.

The framed children’s artwork may be cute – I had some serious crayon skills in the third grade – but it could be taking away from the formal dining room a buyer-prospect is trying to picture.

Depersonalization, decluttering, changing the aura – I don’t care what you call it, it’s sometimes hard for your sellers to hear it. Like a lot of things in this business, it’s all about how you package it. Need those counters cleared and family photos off the walls? That’s just “pre-packing.”

Serious sellers aren’t just thinking about the sale, so frame the staging process as a way to help them get a leg up on the move ahead and keep personal decorations from getting in the way.

5. Be neutral: Make it a canvas

I should clarify: when it comes to being bland, I’m not talking about personality. But the more neutral your listing’s color scheme, the more ready it is for a potential buyer to come in and make it their own.

Be sure to think about the paint and fixtures as well. The bright red walls that were perfect for your client’s couches are more likely to be hurdle for the next owner.

To help drive this point home, pull a few photos from listings in 90210 one of the most expensive Zip codes in the U.S.,  to show how the pros do it when there are millions on the line.

You can also help your sellers get a legup by sharing Trulia’s 10 Hardcore Staging Tips for Serious Sellers.

6. Be consistent: Stage every listing

I said neutral, but don’t take it too far. If you can avoid it, never show an empty home.

Doing so can make it hard for buyers to see a house as a home, lead to super-boring listing photos, and make most places look smaller than they actually are.

I make sure my clients know that staging is a must if they’re serious about selling.

7. Be generous: Spend cash to make cash

You have to spend money to make money. Convincing clients to spend money on a home they are leaving is usually one of the toughest staging conversations I have.

When my clients object, I remind them of the cash they stand to make and the big boost their listing will get from a little bit of investment.

It doesn’t have to take millions or even thousands of dollars to stage a home well. Help your clients be thrifty without being stingy: it’s an investment that can have a serious return if you help them do it right.

There you have it: the Josh Altman-approved strategies for staging. What other tips or tricks have you learned along the way? I’d love to hear them.

For every client review added to your Trulia profile from June 6th to 23rd, you earn a chance to win a $1,000 prepaid Visa gift card (or one of five $100 gift cards.)

Why should you get recommended?

Show you’re an expert
Win new clients with positive feedback from buyers and sellers who’ve experienced your expertise.

Boost your rank in Trulia’s agent directory
Recommendations help move you higher in agent search results on Trulia to connect buyers and sellers that are looking for an agent.

Get more views with a complete profile
Trulia agent profiles that are 100% complete receive 20X more views than the average profile.

You don’t have to take our word for it – check out what other agents have to say about Trulia recommendations:

“I’ve received many calls from all the positive Trulia recommendations I’ve received on the site. I always ask for a Trulia recommendation to my clients whether we closed a deal or I simply help by answering their questions.”
– George Zanetis, Glendale, Queens NY

“The recommendations are much easier to use, and my clients giving me top recommendations helps new buyers find me too. It has put a boost to my business.”
– Sasha Spiegel, Tahoe City CA

How to Enter:

1. Click the Enter Now button and click to “Get Recommended”
2. Request recommendations from your past and current clients
3. Earn one entry for each recommendation added to your Trulia profile between June 10 – 23

There’s no limit to the number of entries you can get and, remember, there are 6 prizes up for grabs.

Enter now for your chance to win!

To read the official sweepstakes rules, click here.

Prices Up 9.5% Year-over-Year, and Rising in 98 of 100 Largest Metros

In May, asking home prices rose 1.1% month-over-month, seasonally adjusted. That’s slower than in previous months — asking prices rose 1.4% in each of February, March, and April (includes revisions) – but still at a very fast clip. Quarter-over-quarter, prices are up 4.0%, seasonally adjusted. Year-over-year, prices are up 9.5% nationally and are higher than one year ago in 98 of the 100 largest metros.

Prices Rising Sharply in the Least Affordable Markets

Recent price gains are squeezing would-be buyers in metros where the cost of owning is steep. We created a measure of local affordability based on current asking prices and the most recent wage data available (from the 2012 third-quarter Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages survey). We estimated how far a typical worker’s wages to go pay the mortgage on a standard-sized home (1800 square feet) at current mortgage rates (3.8%), using local wages and local asking prices. (Keep in mind that wages are not the only source of income, and some households have more than one wage-earner while others have none. That means the actual cost-of-housing burden for a particular household may be higher or lower, but our method is designed compare affordability across metros in an apples-to-apples way.) The monthly mortgage payment relative to the typical worker’s wages ranges hugely, from a high of 74% in Honolulu and 55% in San Francisco to just 8% in Detroit and 12% in Houston and Atlanta.

Among the 10 least affordable metros, eight had double-digit price gains in the past year. Three had price gains of more than 20%: Orange County, Oakland, and San Jose. Among the 10 least affordable metros, the average Y-o-Y asking price gain was 16.3%.

In contrast, among the 10 most affordable metros, prices rose 9.5% on average – same as the national price increase, but well behind the average price gain for the 10 least affordable metros. The affordable metros of Detroit, Atlanta, Memphis, Fort Worth, and Dallas all had double-digit price gains, but the rest of the most affordable metros had price gains below the national rate.

The Widening Affordability Gap – and Why it Matters

Across all 100 metros, less affordable markets tend to have high price gains. The correlation between the Y-o-Y price gain and the mortgage-payment-versus-wage measure is 0.3 (statistically significant at the 5% level). That means that homeownership affordability is becoming more unequal across the U.S. – the gap between more affordable and less affordable markets is growing. This growing gap means two things for the housing market:

First, as local markets become more unequal, more people will consider moving from less affordable to more affordable areas. The example of California makes this clear: in the years when California home prices were even more out of line with the rest of the U.S., more people left California for other states. Therefore, widening affordability gaps could cause more people to make long-distance moves to a more affordable local housing market.

Second, a widening affordability gap puts pressure on housing policy. It’s harder to come up with one-size-fits-all national housing policies when local markets are becoming more different from each other. For instance, more expensive markets tend to benefit more from the mortgage interest deduction – so as prices become more unequal, it means that the impact of any changes to the mortgage interest deduction would be even more concentrated in some geographic areas.

Rents Rising More Slowly in More Affordable Markets

Rents are up 2.3% year-over-year nationally. Rents are rising faster than prices in just 2 of the 25 largest rental markets: Houston and Philadelphia. Among the five least affordable rental markets, rents are rising strongly in Miami and Boston, steadily in New York, but only modestly in San Francisco and Los Angeles. In contrast, in three of the most affordable big-city rental markets – Seattle, Las Vegas, and Sacramento — rents were flat or falling.

 The next Trulia Price Monitor and Trulia Rent Monitor will be released on Wednesday, July 3, at 10 AM ET.

How did we put this report together? To recap the methodology, the Trulia Price Monitor and the Trulia Rent Monitor track asking home prices and rents on a monthly basis, adjusting for the changing composition of listed homes, including foreclosures provided by RealtyTrac. The Trulia Price Monitor also accounts for the regular seasonal fluctuations in asking prices in order to reveal the underlying trend in prices. The Monitors can detect price movements at least three months before the major sales-price indexes do. Our FAQs provide all the technical details.

Elizabeth has over 10 year experience in the rental business and has put together this informative series to guide you’re your investment clients through the process of becoming and being a landlord.

To start this series, Elizabeth offers her insight on one of the most important pieces of buying and/or managing investment properties – Making Sure the Numbers Make Sense:

Before you or your clients jump into the fast moving world of rentals, they have to be sure they (and the property) are financially fit enough to be successful. Here are two steps every landlord should complete before they decide to jump in:

1. Get the Pre-Approval

Unless you plan to purchase an investment property with all cash, the first step you must make before embarking on your journey of becoming a landlord is to get pre-approved for a loan. The pre-approval process is fairly painless and requires no commitment.

It requires a making quick phone call with a loan broker, answering a questionnaire and gathering of financial information. Don’t worry. Lenders do not bite! Once you have submitted your information to your loan broker, he or she will run some numbers and inform you what you qualify for. For the purpose of this blog post, I will use $500,000 as your pre-approval amount. Once you are pre-approved, you will know in what price range to start looking.

2. Run the Expense/Income Numbers

If a lender says you “qualify” for $500,000 this does not mean you can AFFORD a $500,000 income property. Before you make an offer on a property, you must be sure the numbers work. The biggest mistake new investors make is they only anticipate the mortgage, property taxes and insurance expenses. However, there is also a vacancy factor, routine maintenance and emergency maintenance expenses.

To assist in this process, check out this free Income Calculation spreadsheet at http://www.therentalgirl.com/income . This tool will help you determine if a property’s income will cover expenses.

How to Run the Numbers

Using the Income Calculation spreadsheet, here’s the data you’ll need to make a sound decision on whether you’re ready to take on becoming a properties landlord:

Purchase Price: Enter the list price of the investment property you wish to purchase or the amount you are willing to offer.

Down payment: Be sure to include the total amount if cash you are paying as down payment. You can either enter a percentage or dollar amount.

Loan amount: The loan amount is the list price minus the down payment.

Actual Income: Enter the current rent the property is collecting. Specify whether you are entering yearly or monthly income.

Scheduled Income: If the rents are below market, or the units need upgrading, enter in the rent amount you think the units could get in today’s market. You as an agent can find these yourselves. However, if you’re working with landlord hopefuls, they’ll need your help to determine potential rent amounts. Specify whether you are entering yearly or monthly income.

Mortgage interest: Enter the loan rate from your pre-approval letter from your loan officer.

Property taxes: Enter in the percentage amount for your states property taxes. (Note: The default percentage in the spreadsheet is for California.)

Expenses: Leave this percentage at the default rate of 28% or change the percentage if you have a more accurate estimate.

The amount of maintenance required on an income property varies from property to property, the standard percentage used to estimate maintenance expenses is 28-30% of the yearly income.

Factors that influence maintenance expenses include: age of the building, size of the yard, age of renovations, condition of the major systems like plumbing, electric and roof.

Insurance, vacancy and property management: Again, leave these fields with the default amount or talk with a your area experts to develop a forecast.

Once you have entered all the fields, the results will appear on the right. These results will give you an idea of your monthly and yearly cash flow – both with current rents and with future predicted rents.

These steps should help you figure out if you’re financially ready to become a landlord. If the answer is yes, find out if you’re mentally ready by checking out my next post where I’ll address the two most common fears among new landlords.

When real estate markets recover, it’s not uncommon for overly ambitious sellers to consider selling without an agent in attempt to increase their profits.

Help show your seller prospects the dangers of FSBO listings and how you, the local area expert, can help them save valuable time and money with your market Wisdom.

Brand and share this handout to

• help win listings from local FSBO properties
• show seller prospects you’re the local real estate expert
• reinforce the benefits of using a licensed real estate professional

America’s Top Vacation-Home Spots

The two most-searched vacation ZIP codes in America are both in Cape May, NJ: Ocean City and North Wildwood. The top vacation areas also include Kissimmee, Marco Island, and Panama City Beach, all in Florida. In California, the most popular locations for a vacation home are Big Bear Lake and Lake Arrowhead near Los Angeles, and in the north, Truckee and South Lake Tahoe.

Among the top 20 vacation ZIP codes, the most expensive are Nantucket and East Hampton, where the median asking price is well over a million. The least expensive are in the South: Gatlinburg, TN, at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and Cherry Grove Beach, near Myrtle Beach, SC.

Many vacation areas are bigger than a single ZIP code, so let’s also look at the top counties for vacation searches for a clearer sense of the most popular areas. Almost 5% of U.S. vacation-home searches are in Cape May county, NJ, with another 4% in Barnstable county, MA (Cape Cod). Check out the full list below:  these top 10 counties account for more than one quarter (27%) of all U.S. vacation searches.

Vacation Close to Home – Or Go Far, Far Away?

The top vacation areas nationally are on or near the East or West Coast. Does that mean Texans and Midwesterners travel far or skip vacations altogether? No! The most popular vacation areas nationally are near the country’s biggest population centers, but every region has its own nearby favorites. This interactive map reveals which are the top counties and top ZIP codes for vacation searches for each of 25 large metro areas.

Let’s take a tour of favorite vacation areas in different regions of the country.

New Yorkers, for instance, tend to look farther east for vacation. More than one quarter (26%) of vacation searches by New Yorkers are to Suffolk County, which includes the Hamptons and Montauk. The most popular vacation ZIP code for New Yorkers is East Hampton, where homes list for a median price of $1.25M, as do homes in several other popular New York vacation ZIP codes. What about New Yorkers who aren’t going to drop a million on a second home? They look to Pennsylvania: two of the ten top vacation spots for New Yorkers, Pocono Lake and Bushkill, are in the Keystone State and have median home prices below $150,000.

What about Bostonians? They don’t like to leave their state – but if your state had Cape Cod, neither would you. Half of the vacation searches by people in the Boston metro area are for homes on Cape Cod.

Outside of the Northeast, people search farther for vacation homes. For example, just one of the top ten ZIP codes for vacation searches by Chicago residents is in Illinois, while the rest are in Michigan (Grand Beach, Union Pier), Wisconsin (Lake Geneva, Fontana, Wisconsin Dells), and Florida (Marco Island, Fort Myers Beach).

Atlantans look most in the Florida Panhandle, including Panama City Beach and Santa Rosa Beach.

Finally, Seattleites often look far from home: their top vacation-search county is Riverside, in southern California, home of Palm Springs and the Palm Desert.

What does this all mean for your vacation plans? Wherever you live, there’s probably a local-favorite vacation area nearby. Furthermore, even the most expensive metros have some affordable vacation options close to home. However, the strong regional patterns for vacation-home searches imply that you’re likely to run into your neighbors from back home while on vacation. If you’re hoping to be more anonymous, you might want to go to some other metro’s top vacation spot – not your own.

Note: we estimated vacation-area searches based on Trulia site traffic from April 1, 2012, to March 31, 2013. Vacation areas are ZIP codes where at least 25% of housing units are for seasonal or occasional use, according to the Census, and we counted searches as vacation searches if they were for homes in vacation ZIP codes outside the searcher’s own metro area. We assumed that the number of vacation-related searches to a ZIP code was proportional to the share of vacation homes in that area. For instance, we counted a ZIP code with (1) 10,000 searches on Trulia and (2) 40% seasonal/occasional-use housing according to the Census as having 4,000 vacation-related searches. County-level vacation search counts are the sum of vacation searches to all vacation-area ZIP codes in that county.