Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Northwest Real Estate Federal Way & Puyallup

With businesses starting to slowly open back up again in some parts of the country, it’s important to understand how housing can have a major impact on the recovery of the U.S. economy. As we’ve mentioned before,  buying a home  is a driving financial force in this process. Today, many analysts believe one of the first things we’ll be able to safely bring back is the home building sector, creating more jobs and impacting local neighborhoods in a big way. According to Robert Dietz in  The Eye on Housing :   “The pace of new home sales will post significant declines during the second quarter due to the impacts of higher unemployment and shutdown effects of much of the U.S. economy, including elements of the real estate sector in certain markets. However, given the momentum housing construction held at the start of 2020, the housing industry will help lead the economy in the eventual recovery.”  The  National Association of Home Builders  ( NAHB ...

Through all the volatility in the economy right now, some have put their search for a home on hold, yet others have not. According to  ShowingTime , the real estate industry’s leading showing management technology provider, buyers have started to reappear over the last several weeks. In the  latest report , they revealed: “The March ShowingTime Showing Index® recorded the first nationwide drop in showing traffic in eight months as communities responded to COVID-19. Early April data show signs of an upswing, however.” Why would people be setting appointments to look at prospective homes when the process of purchasing a home has become more difficult with shelter-in-place orders throughout the country? Here are three reasons for this uptick in activity: 1. Some people need to move. Whether because of a death in the family, a new birth, divorce, financial hardship, or a job transfer, some families need to make a move as quickly as possible. 2. Real estate agents a...

With the release of the latest  Economic Pulse  Flash Survey  from the  National Association of Realtors  (NAR), results show that people selling their houses today are holding strong on  price . According to the most recent data, 74% of real estate agents noted that sellers are not dropping listing prices to attract more buyers. Lawrence Yun,  Chief Economist  at NAR, noted:   “The housing market faced an inventory shortage before the pandemic. Given that there are even fewer new listings during the pandemic, home sellers are taking a calm approach and appear unwilling to lower prices to attract buyers during the temporary disruptions to the economy.” This  inventory  shortage, which spread widely throughout the housing market going into today’s economic slowdown, created an environment where there were not enough homes for sale for those who wanted to buy them. With that backdrop setting the stage, Yun also notes: “W...

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association   This Week in Real Estate   purchase application volume   last week realized its first week-over-week gain since early March.  The National Association of Realtors reported that while March home sales saw a decline compared to February overall sales increased year-over-year for the ninth straight month.  While an interruption in units is expected over the next couple of months the same is not expected of home prices. The median existing-home price was up 8 percent compared to prior year; marking 97 straight months of year-over-year gains.  Below are a few newsworthy events from the  third  week of April that influence our business:  *  Lenders and Appraisers Forge New Bond Amid Coronavirus Crisis .   The COVID-19 pandemic has placed stress levels on the housing market that have not been witnessed since the Great Recession. But one area of strength that has kept the indu...

A big challenge facing the housing industry is determining what impact the current pandemic may have on home values. Some buyers are hoping for major price reductions because the health crisis is straining the economy. The price of any item, however, is determined by supply and demand, which is how many items are  available  in relation to how many consumers  want to buy  that item. In residential real estate, the measurement used to decipher that ratio is called  months supply of inventory . A  normal market  would have 6-7 months of inventory. Anything over seven months would be considered a  buyers’ market , with downward pressure on prices. Anything under six months would indicate a  sellers’ market , which would put upward pressure on prices. Going into March of this year, the supply stood at three months – a strong seller’s market. While buyer demand has decreased rather dramatically during the pandemic, the number of homes on ...

Earlier this week, we  discussed  how most projections from financial institutions are calling for a quick V-shaped recovery from this economic downturn, and there’s research on previous post-pandemic recoveries to support that expectation. In addition, we noted how there are some in the business community who believe we may instead be headed for a U-shaped recovery, where the return to previous levels of economic success won’t occur until the middle of next year. Yesterday,  Reuters  released a  poll  of U.S. and European economists which revealed that most surveyed are now leaning more toward a U-shaped recovery. Here are the results of that poll: Why the disparity in thinking among different groups of economic experts?  The current situation makes it extremely difficult to project the future of the economy. Analysts normally look at economic data and compare it to previous slowdowns to create their projections. This situation, however, is...