By Living Room Realty, June 9, 2020
We are about three full months into the COVID-19 pandemic and I could not have predicted the outcome thus far. In early March, when things started to get serious, it really felt as though the sky was falling. We were in totally uncharted territory and every day there was a new development, a sharp drop in the stock market, a spike in unemployment…in short, the economic trajectory was not good.
Today it seems that we have all settled into the new normal and in that time the real estate sale process has adapted as well. Title companies are doing a lot of remote signings in your garage or back deck. Home inspectors request that buyers only come to the debrief at the end of the inspection. Most listing agents, myself included, are doing a lot more vetting of any buyers before allowing them to tour a home (especially if it is occupied). Open houses have been cancelled but are actually starting to come back online in the past few weeks. We are doing our company meetings via Zoom; it is not nearly as fun or interactive, but we are still able to learn and transfer a lot of data. Every step in the process has been slightly modified and it has been working.
Many of the sales that originated pre-COVID actually survived to closing. Homes that went into contract post-shelter-in-place had a higher probability of sticking together because buyers and sellers had a much better perspective on what they were getting into. There was a time period in late-March through mid-May when it looked like inventory was going to rise and things were going to shift to more of a buyers market. That was pretty short lived. Now we are experiencing a late-season surge of buyers with a lot of competitive situations. Usually the busy Spring market starts to slow in mid to late May. This year I think I could go into early July.
It will be really interesting to see how the market plays out through this coming Summer. If there is any dip in pricing and value, we won’t be able to have any real perspective on that until later this year when we can look backwards at comparable sales. I think the lockdown has forced a lot of people to really take a hard look at where they live and why they live there. On a national level, I’d say that Oregon is a better place to be stuck at home than many other states. That may be one reason that the Real Estate Market in Portland has remained strong. The alure of the Pacific Northwest brought me here 20+ years ago from the East Coast…I get it!!
