How will coronavirus affect the housing market?

[Jaqen Haghar MD]

From the Washington Post - "New-home sales grew unexpectedly in April, eking out a slight gain instead of the steep decline that had been forecast, the U.S. Commerce Department reported Tuesday.

Sales of new, single-family homes rose 0.6 percent in April — a modest but significant advance given the nearly 40 million job losses the nation has endured since the coronavirus took hold roughly 10 weeks ago."

As I said earlier in this thread - Who knows on how the coronavirus will affect the market !!! But if you go to the source material, the US Dept of Commerce says that April sales were down 6% relative to last year April - that seems to be the news more than March to April uptick no matter how surprising it is.

You saw this type of reporting all through the housing crash around 2009. “News flash! some housing sales up in March!” (compared to feb.). Usually reported by the National Association of Realtors.

BTW, existing home sales fell 17.8% for the month of April compared to March 2020, worst in 10 years. Interestingly, prices held though.

[StarTrekDoc]

Inventory low - prices stable; no new listings - good homes listed get sold fast-- DOM: <7 days; so demand good in our zip code. high priced homes >2M sitting. but 1-1.5M moving easily.

[Cubicle]

I know multiple "sellers" who are waiting to list. So agree on the "low inventory" aspect.

[White.Beard.Doc]

So I wrote my post above with my thoughts about the new Covid economy and real estate more than 2 months ago.

What is shaping up in this area is quite interesting and quite different from what I expected. Pre-covid, the preferred path for many uber wealthy finance, law and medicine professionals was to raise their children in the heart of our VHCOL city, send the little ones to private school, and enjoy the arts and fine dining city lifestyle. Post-covid, these same folks are holed up in their country houses at the beach and in the mountains with the little ones and the nannies, working from home.

We live in a very close in suburb where the commute is short, the schools excellent, and the fresh air sweet. The city dwellers are now looking to get out of the city to escape the virus. So the 3.5M house down the block along with the 100k annual property taxes just sold to one such uber wealthy former city dwelling family. It offers space, privacy, along with bucolic gardens and a pool, since the kiddos can no longer participate in any summer programs.

The higher end rentals in this area are going to multiple bids. Real estate is very local. In this village, demand is through the roof, no inventory, and huge competition to find a place to live. It seems many well paid tech and finance folks are doing just fine in this new Covid economy. Very interesting indeed.

[nephron]

I thought that the housing market would have crashed by now but then started thinking and reading more about the economics of it all. People who lose their jobs who own their homes are not going to want to sell their homes right now because they need a place to live and cannot move until they get a new job (to qualify for rent, mortgage, etc). Landlords looking to get out of the long term rental market/get more equity are unable to get tenants to move out because they cannot evict anyone most places and most people are not looking to move in this environment. The housing supply was already limited prior to the pandemic and I would imagine that a lot of new home constructions have paused or stopped. I think that the only people who may be looking to exit their property these days are airbnb rental home owners who realize that they have too much mortgage to pay and no way to pay it. I don't think most of the people who were over-extended were single family home owners in this market though. Anyways, if I had to guess, I would guess that the housing market is "frozen" with all of these people who would have been moving but who are now stuck because they wherever they were planning on moving is not hiring anymore so they are staying put. I think that in a few years when things get to be more normal, the housing market will go down because people a lot of people will have less income to spend on housing and there will be more supply on the market when you get your normal people moving from one area to another for jobs. That's my guess on what is happening in the housing market anyways.

[venacontracta]

What is shaping up in this area is quite interesting and quite different from what I expected. Pre-covid, the preferred path for many uber wealthy finance, law and medicine professionals was to raise their children in the heart of our VHCOL city, send the little ones to private school, and enjoy the arts and fine dining city lifestyle. Post-covid, these same folks are holed up in their country houses at the beach and in the mountains with the little ones and the nannies, working from home.

My wife and I are a dual-physician couple in fairly well paying specialties, just entering into practice in a few months. We're renting for the first couple years out to make sure we like where we're going but the ultimate dream is living in the center of a VHCOL city and doing exactly what you described (I know that is an unpopular approach here). It will be interesting what happens to the price of urban homes with so much unrest going on and a segment of people who can afford to live anywhere saying peace out to the city.

[White.Beard.Doc]

My wife and I are a dual-physician couple in fairly well paying specialties, just entering into practice in a few months. We're renting for the first couple years out to make sure we like where we're going but the ultimate dream is living in the center of a VHCOL city and doing exactly what you described (I know that is an unpopular approach here). It will be interesting what happens to the price of urban homes with so much unrest going on and a segment of people who can afford to live anywhere saying peace out to the city.

Sellers and developers in Manhattan are struggling with oversupply at the high end, falling demand, and very strong downward pressure on the market. I am not as familiar with the San Francisco market, but have heard rumblings of the same. You may be able to snap something up for a good price if current trends continue for a while, but so much is unknown. If there is no effective vaccine in the near term and the cases keep rising, current downward pressure could intensify. But so much of this is unknowable right now.

[StarTrekDoc]

Normally, SF and Manhattan have enjoyed fairly robust and unique demand curves. even the housing crisis affected minimally and first to recover and sustained rise. But Covid is a different beast so flight to suburbs may actually take root -- but then again the young professionals are the ones to drive the gentrification and they are packing our streets today leading the charge for change. So, I wouldn't count it out either.

Dreams change. Good plan to save for next years to see if yours does as you save up the kitty to enact your plan.