The seven-day moving average was +32% on March 8th, and now the average is -68.7%! This is during the peak showing season too!
But at least the current trend looks like it is flattening out? Hopefully the change of realtors being declared essential workers will mean more activity, but it might be too late already.
This will probably be the death knell for buyer-agents, especially if the ‘rona tightens the supply further, which would cause fewer listings to make it onto the MLS.
Buyers, sellers, and agents are closing out sales, but the total number of pendings (above) is plunging because new escrows are running about 50% of normal.
Last week we had 31 new pendings, and I thought we’d be lucky to have half that many this week. But we had the same 31 new pendings this week too, and now that realtors were declared essential workers, we can go back to work if we have serious clients to help.
Last week we had 59 new listings, and this week we had 63 when we should have been hitting 100 or more – so new listings are down about 40%.
Remember seeing the furniture in the garage at our new listing? It was from our stager, who has had 15 cancellations this month. The staging truck came straight from unloading a bigger house, and because their warehouse is so full, they had to leave the extra furniture there while she is scrambling to get additional storage space.
Sellers are as leery about the market as the buyers are, which could lead to the Big Stallout – though sales could be hampered by having to cope with our toilet-paper tragedy:
The total number of pendings should drop off quickly as agents scramble to close their existing escrows and hunker down. Last week we had 55 new pendings, and this week it was 31 – which doesn’t sound too bad. But we’ll be lucky to see half that many by next Monday.
The number of new listings dropped off too. In what would have been the early stages of the selling season, we only had 59 new listings – when last week we had 83.
Hopefully people will keep watching the market via the search portals and blogs. It’s ok to think that nothing much will be happening – which is probably true. But keep an eye out, just in case!
The impact of COVID-19 increased as the week went on, plus we had a few days of rain too. But there wasn’t much drop-off in new listings or new pendings.
The numbers from this past week were almost identical to those in 2018:
NSDCC Weekly Number of New Listings/New Pendings
Week
2018
2019
2020
1st Week of March
84/62
113/52
79/55
2nd Week of March
107/61
122/63
106/66
3rd Week of March
89/55
100/64
83/55
The virus news will get worse in the coming weeks, so it’s time for creative realty!
Above, you can see the red line showing that we are close to the same total number of pendings as we were in 2018 – and finally, a 100+ week of new listings below:
Month
Weekly Number of Listings, 2019
Weekly Number of Listings, 2020
January
92
56
81
76
77
71
87
62
February
92
75
83
97
84
82
72
70
March
113
79
122
106
100
95
The big scare could cause both sellers and buyers to hurry up and hunker down – especially when mortgage rates should get into the 2s! But if home sales slowed 10% to 20%, we’d be fine.
There is some concern about the coronavirus causing home buyers to cool off, but what about sellers?
We sure didn’t have the week of new listings we were hoping for – and buyers willing to brave the hunt for a new home while mortgage rates are under 3% may be disappointed about the choices available:
We are cooking now – we had another 58 new pendings this week, and the 82 new listings were less than expected. You know the market is heating up when other agents are talking about it at open house!
The selling season kicked off this week with 97 new listings, and 72 new pendings, which are the highest numbers since mid-September. We had 35 more pendings this week than in the same week in 2019!
The Big Game is over, and now it’s time for home sales!
Today’s inventory counts look more like they did in 2018, than in 2019. Pricing between $1,000,000 and $1,500,000 popped 15% YoY though, much like the higher range did last year – coincidence? Perhaps the Under-$1M is due for a hefty increase this year – especially with only 30 homes for sale!
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