In the U.S. lumber prices were up 54% year over year as of the second quarter of 2021, and this trend reflected across the globe. In simpler terms, the cost to build just about anything, but in particular homes, skyrocketed. These price increases go well and beyond normal demand surge.

To unpack this, host Maiclaire Bolton Smith sits down with construction aficionado Glenn Bearden. He peels back what's really causing this—from the pandemic, to labor problems, all the way to the core of human behavior.

In the real estate economy, we all know the old adage "location, location, location," but location matters for far more than just determining the market value of a home, and the science of finding the answer of where that home is located is a lot more involved than meets the eye. Is it behind the Whole Foods? Is it halfway down the street, at a specific pair of coordinates, or where the building sits on the land?

In this episode, host Maiclaire Bolton Smith talks to geospatial and location expert Matt Karli. He unravels the complicated question of "where?"--and reveals how location intelligence can even save lives.

The past 10, 20, even 30 years have been momentous in changing the ways we live, and real estate agents have been tasked to stay nimble to these changes. From the old days of pay-per-minute phone calls to today's free social internet, the way agents interact with clients and sell homes has undergone a great transformation.

To share their insights on this revolution, host Maiclaire Bolton Smith welcomes Creig Northrop, founder and CEO of Northrop Realty, and Kevin Greene, senior leader of Property Marketing Solutions at CoreLogic. They discuss the fundamentals of being an excellent agent and consider what the future has in store for the industry.

The future, complete with interconnected and coordinated utilities and buildings, can help people live better. Whether it's managing a city's power supply or the flow of traffic, mitigating for burst pipes or improving delivery service accuracy, smart cities are the next big leap in fundamentally reimagining how we live. And this future is closer than you might expect.

In this episode, host Maiclaire Bolton Smith talks to data enthusiast Ty Tucker about the possibilities--and risks--of the smart world before us.

Hurricane season kicked off on June 1, and 2021 is projected to be another above-normal year. Last year, Hurricanes Laura and Delta decimated the Louisiana coastline. Lake Charles, Louisiana, was hit exceptionally hard, but in spite of the devastation and hardships, the community came together. Two veterans who were so inspired by the courage and kindness teamed up to make a documentary series that aims to give back to the organizations that helped the community recover.

In this episode, host Maiclaire Bolton Smith chats with Justin Roberts and Hank Barbe, the dynamic duo behind the project, about what they experienced, how the documentary series Do Good came to be, and how communities can prepare for the 2021 hurricane season ahead.

According to a survey conducted by CoreLogic in 2021, nearly 80% of people looking to buy homes agreed that the homebuying process was very stressful. 58% noted that the pandemic has made the homebuying process much more difficult. And despite the digital world we live in, the process can still be cumbersome.

Matt Fagioli, owner and founder of BKG Brokerage Atlanta and broker advisor to CoreLogic, sits down with host Maiclaire Bolton Smith to talk about a new AI-enabled technology revolutionizing the homebuying experience: OneHome.

Market value. Replacement value. Reconstruction value. Assessed value. Appraised value. The real estate ecosystem is filled with hundreds of similar-sounding names, with similar-sounding purposes, and even seasoned professionals get them confused.

In this episode, Core Conversations host Maiclaire Bolton Smith chats with valuations expert Sherrie Clevenger to get to the bottom of this matter: what do all of these values mean? And how do we ensure they're accurate?

Over 1,000 tornadoes are recorded each year in the United States. With their ability to arrive unannounced, coupled with hundreds-of-miles-an-hour winds, they can obliterate everything in their path before disappearing, destroying homes and lives in the process.

Curtis McDonald, resident meteorologist at CoreLogic, joins the podcast to talk with host Maiclaire Bolton Smith about how, despite his mother's fears, he got into storm chasing, how valuable these observations are to creating rapid intel and algorithms for insurers and financial institutions, and what climate change might mean for the future of tornadoes and severe weather.

April is Financial Literacy Month, and to recognize the importance of the topic, Core Conversations host Maiclaire Bolton Smith sits down with Pete Carroll to talk about the Affordable Housing Crisis in the U.S.

Homeownership is a major pathway for people build and grow wealth, so when buying a home becomes increasingly expensive, those who don't already own one are locked out of achieving economic mobility. He shares the connection between financial literacy and homeownership and how we can help our most economically vulnerable secure the opportunity to rise up.

Finding the dream home can be incredibly competitive these days. From "sight unseen" home purchases to bidding wars, a combination of low supply, low interest rates, and the pandemic-driven desire for space have raised the stakes for buyers, sellers and agents alike.

Deneka Waddell, from the Holmes Realty Group, is the expert on the ground. In this episode, she sits down with Core Conversations host Maiclaire Bolton Smith to reveal what is actually happening, how data can improve the home purchase process, and whether freshly baked cookies actually sell homes.