Home Buyer Activity Still Slowing, Slowly, in 2020
Scott P. Rogers
Are home buyers contracting to buy homes as quickly as we would have expected them to be in 2020? No.
Has the pace of home buying activity dropped drastically given the current public health situation? No.
As shown above, home buyer activity (this year is the red line) continues to trail off a bit as compared to the past two years.
- At the start of March, this year's home buying activity was at a record pace - easily eclipsing each of the past two years.
- By mid-April, this year's trajectory of home buying activity had slowed down below last year's pace of buying activity.
- By early May (now) this year's trajectory of home buying activity had slowed down beyond the pace of contract activity seen in 2018.
The timing of contracts is different every year, so if we average out the past two years we see a pace of 485 contracts through May 7th. Thus, this year's pace of buying activity is only 4% slower than the average of the past two years.
So...
Is COVID-19 affecting the pace of home buying (and selling) activity in our local market? Yes.
Is it still relatively likely that this year's total number of home sales will be within 5% - 10% of last year? Yes.
Stay tuned for further analysis as we progress through this unusual time.
