real estate

This regularly-scheduled sponsored Q&A column is written by Eli Tucker, Arlington-based Realtor and Arlington resident. Please submit your questions to him via email for response in future columns. Enjoy!

Question: What has been the impact of the Coronavirus/COVID-19 on the real estate market?

Answer: I hope you and your families are healthy and finding some productive ways to remain safely at home. It’s been great to see so much carryout and delivery activity at local restaurants, I hope we can keep our favorite establishments in business.

I want to shout out the Sunday evening manager at the South Arlington Ledo Pizza for the way he was expressing constant, sincere appreciation to every employee hard at work and each customer who came in. It was refreshing to hear such positivity.

This week I’ll cover some real-time market updates and take a look at how past recessions have impacted real estate.

March 30 Stay At Home Order — Executive Order 55

Yesterday afternoon, Governor Northam announced EO 55, at Temporary Stay At Home Order due to COVID-19 to further discourage gatherings and personal contact.

There was an immediate concern across the real estate community that the new order effectively shut down all real estate operations, but soon after Northam’s announcement, the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors (NVAR) and the Virginia Association of Realtors (VAR) announced that under EO 55, real estate business may continue to operate using best practices for social distancing and other measures recommended by the CDC, as well as avoiding any gatherings of 10+ people. Here is a link to the official NVAR comments.

That means that as of this morning showings, inspections, appraisals, closings, lending and other activities critical to a real estate transaction are all still allowed in Virginia/Northern Virginia. Public Open Houses are strongly discouraged and many companies have suspended them.

Personally, I think showings are the most questionable activity because you can make a strong case in both directions. If somebody needs to find a home, it’s fair to say that they need to see the home in person before making an offer. On the flip side, somebody seeing five properties on a Saturday afternoon to prepare for a purchase 6 months from now should not be out on showings. There’s certainly a level of personal responsibility required here.

Arlington Market Update

It seems that much of the Arlington and Northern Virginia market has softened in the past week. This is based on further decreases in showing activity and the negotiations I’ve been directly involved in or aware of via colleagues. We won’t have actual price data available for another 3-4+ weeks when homes start closing that were placed under contract during the COVD-19 lockdown period.

New inventory continued to flow into the market, but was down from the previous week. A healthy 63 homes went under contract, showing that there are still buyers out there, but many of them are likely securing better terms than they would have a month ago, and facing much less competition.

Showing activity is unsurprisingly very low, with the average showings per listing dropping to 2.25 over the past week. With an average of about 15 showings before a ratified contract, expect average days on market to start increasing. However, the showings that are taking place tend to be to ready-buyers so it should take fewer showings than it used to for the right buyer to surface.

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This regularly-scheduled sponsored Q&A column is written by Eli Tucker, Arlington-based Realtor and Arlington resident. Please submit your questions to him via email for response in future columns. Enjoy!

Question: What has been the impact of the Coronavirus/COVID-19 on the real estate market?

Answer: What a difference a week makes. Last Tuesday I started off semi-apologetic for writing what felt like a click-bait article at the time and this week it feels like writing about anything else would be absurd.

Last week I wrote that the impact of COVID-19 on real estate thus far was business as usual with a few big “What Ifs.” Those What Ifs came to fruition within 24-72 hours of Tuesday’s column — major changes to our daily routines (school closures, work closures) and significant changes in the global/domestic economy.

It is no longer business as usual in real estate, but the show still goes on for most buyers and some sellers… for now.

This week and in the following weeks I will do my best to communicate the impact of the Coronavirus on the local real estate market through my experiences, experiences shared by my colleagues/industry partners (inspectors, lenders, etc), and market data.

What I’m Seeing/Hearing

Combining the reactions of my clients and clients of the 15-20 agents I’ve spoken with over the last few days to gauge shifts in supply (sellers) and demand (buyers), it seems that many/most buyers are staying the course with their purchase but the jitters seem to be setting in more over the last couple of days, especially for those who also need to sell a home. Sellers are much more nervous, understandably so, and many are questioning their need/plans to sell their home.

Most agents experienced noticeable drops in Open House and showing traffic over the weekend, although I spoke with a few agents who hosted 20+ groups during an Open House. My guess is that there are fewer people visiting homes who aren’t serious/ready buyers and that usually makes up a large percentage of total foot traffic.

Many of the agents I spoke with who submitted an offer this weekend still found themselves competing against multiple offers with strong terms, but the number of competing offers seemed less than what they would have expected a few weeks ago.

I experienced this on a house in South Arlington that 2-3 weeks ago would have probably gotten 5-10 offers, but my client was up against just one or two, albeit strong, offers (they won!).

I think one of the best measures of buyer demand/activity is home inspection bookings. I spoke with Ken Humphreys, the Area Manager of Virginia and Maryland for BPG Inspections, one of the largest inspection companies in the country, and he shared some valuable insights on his activity, as well as regional and national activity.

Almost all of Ken’s business is in Northern Virginia and during a hot market (like the last 8 weeks) he’s often booked out for 5-7 days. His schedule is full this week Monday-Wednesday but wide-open starting Thursday, which never happens.

In Virginia and Maryland, their bookings are down 15% from where they were last week and they were projecting a 10% increase in bookings this week over last, given the time of year. Bookings are down about 20% nationally.

Transactions Still Going

There was some concern that transactions would be halted due to courts, appraisers, and loan underwriters shutting down due to Coronavirus but so far everybody is operational, with some adjustments to adhere to social distancing practices.

Arlington County courts, like many others, have restricted walk-in business but essential services are still available which includes e-recording of deeds (allows property ownership to officially transfer). Lenders and appraisers are still operational, but people should prepare for longer turn-around times.

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