Coronavirus Market Stat Update 4

Yesterday, March 25, was the first day the area was officially under Shelter-In-Place orders. So how did that impact real estate? Well, we saw more new listings (188) hit the market on a Wednesday than we have in the month since I've been tracking this number daily. The number of contracts signed yesterday currently shows as 47, but given the time lag of agents reporting this, I expect that will rise to 55 or 60, which is by far the lowest of any day over the past month. The number of withdrawn listings was 20, the second highest in the past month. The number of listings changed to 'temporarily off market' was 65, the highest daily number over the last month.

Response from the real estate community to the shelter-in-place has been mixed. Some agents have shut down completely and others are indicating they are not planning to slow down a bit. With the high number of new listings still hitting the market, clearly sellers are not very concerned. But the drop in the number of contracts clearly shows that buyers are not in full agreement. It is hard to say if buyers are concerned about contracting covid-19 or if they are concerned about the economic situation (could be both, of course).

The Austin Board of Realtors sent an email to members yesterday stating that the City of Austin and Travis County orders were clear that traditional showings of property are not permitted. It went on to say that Williamson County wasn't so clear and they were working on getting clarification. I talked to the covid-19 hotline for Williamson County and they were super clear that traditional showings are not permitted. Interestingly, though, they are permitting builders to keep their model homes open and for them to sell homes. Obviously, I find that to be a double standard, but they don't really care what I think.

Real estate will not completely shut down so if you are ready to buy or sell a home, reach out to me and we'll talk about how and what we can do while we are under the shelter-in-place orders. 512-650-7300 or [email protected].

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