Some housing markets are hot, pandemic or not
Places with the biggest declines were in regions where the virus hit earliest
Coronavirus has run roughshod over most of the nation’s big-city real estate markets for more than six weeks now, paralyzing agents, halting showings and causing double-digit drops in listings and new inventory as frightened sellers withdraw their properties from consideration.
But in a precious few metro areas, something different is happening. In Atlanta and RaleighDurham, North Carolina, in Austin, Texas, among others, real estate agents are fighting back against the pandemic.
They’re making sure that state and local governments acknowledge that their profession is essential so they can keep working. They’re figuring out how to make clients feel comfortable about interactions at a time of masks and gloves and disinfectants, and they’re finding ways to complete just about every stage of the real estate transaction in the virtual world.
“You have to give a huge amount of kudos to the real estate community,” said Jeremy Crawford, who runs Atlanta’s Multiple Listing Service. “They learned how to show homes and sell homes and still practice social distancing.”
As a result, this rare cluster of cities saw real estate listings or new inventory grow in the first week of April compared with the same period a year earlier, according to data provided by Zillow.com – a remarkable achievement considering that almost every major metropolitan area in the country saw a sharp drop in those categories over the same period.
Consider Los Angeles, which saw its total listings plunge 30% to around 12,800 as of April 5; or Phoenix, where listings were down 27% to just less than 15,000; or Philadelphia, where listings
dove 26% to 14,000.
Or ponder new inventory in Detroit, where only 113 new homes came on the market as of April 5 – 65% fewer than last year; or New York, where 532 new homes emerged – a 57% drop. These were massive declines, but not uncommon during COVID-19.
The pattern: Cities that suffered the greatest declines in real estate activity were usually in regions where coronavirus landed first – the West Coast – or where the disease hit hardest and governments went into lockdown – the Northeast and upper Midwest.
“Pennsylvania and Michigan were two states that were very strict about lockdowns,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors. “Visiting a home was a violation there. As a result, Michigan and Pennsylvania real estate activity went down much more than say Virginia or Georgia.”
Jennifer Pino, the president of Atlanta Realtors Association, acknowledges that the continued strength of her city’s real estate market is because the outbreak in Georgia came later and was not nearly as severe as in California or New York.
Atlanta’s real estate market also was in hyperdrive before COVID-19, Pino said. Inventory was extremely tight.
But once the pandemic hit, Pino said Realtors in Atlanta petitioned Georgia’s governor and the mayor of Atlanta to make sure everyone from agents to appraisers would be able to keep their doors open.
‘We don’t want people in our homes’
Jo Gipson, an assistant broker with Compass Real Estate in Atlanta, said one of the biggest hurdles has been making sure buyers and sellers feel safe.
“In March there was a pause in the market,” she said. “A bunch of sellers said: ‘We don’t want to have people in our homes.’ Everything got put on hold or withdrawn. But that only lasted a couple of weeks until we were able to figure out what was safe.”
Armed with gloves and masks and Purell, agents began to venture out again. They learned to go to homes ahead of time and turn on all the lights and open all the doors so buyers and their agents wouldn’t have to touch anything. They learned not to ride around with clients in their cars. They relied more on virtual tours, walking through homes using FaceTime to show clients every nook and cranny.
“We took it really seriously,” Gipson said. “We knew people needed to feel comfortable.” Then came the innovation, according to Tanya Ousler, and agent with Realty Associates of Atlanta.
Realtors, mortgage brokers and bankers, title agents and attorneys figured out how to conduct practically every stage of the real estate transaction from showings to closings in the virtual world – the one exception being appraisals.
The most difficult piece, Ousler said, was the closing. But Georgia ended up allowing virtual notaries to oversee buyers, sellers and their attorneys remotely. The different parties all would appear on Zoom and go through the paperwork. Then the documents would be sent back to the attorney’s office for their official stamps.
“Whether some or all of this will continue after this, I don’t know,” Ousler said. “But the crisis caused everyone to become more creative.”
Following the rules
For Jason Lee and his wife, Katie, who were about to have their second child, the closing of their four-bedroom house coincided with the outbreak of COVID-19.
With help from Gipson, they found their new home in February in Decatur, a city northeast of Atlanta. They made an offer in mid-March.
By the time of the closing, the pandemic was in full swing. Jason Lee said there was nothing revolutionary about signing in all the right places.
“We just followed the rules,” Lee said. “We went to the closing in the attorney’s office. Everyone sat in the conference room – eight feet apart. We all wore gloves and masks. We passed around the documents, and everyone used their own pens.” He added that the room was sanitized before their arrival and again after they left.
As a result of these precautions and innovations, Ousler said Atlanta will not see much of a downturn when the April numbers come out.
According to Crawford, the chief executive of First Multiple Listing Service in Atlanta, listings in his city have dropped