Everyone is asking and wondering what will happen to the housing market as a result of the COVID-19 crisis.
And fortunately one of the most accurate prognosticators weighed in on the topic in this recent Housing News Podcast.
The prognosticator is Barry Habib, CEO of MBS Highway. I quote him often b/c he is apolitical and b/c he has been particularly accurate over the last several years.
This is what he predicted for the housing market this year:
For homes below or near the median price for a particular region, he expects only a 1% to 2% drop in values.
For higher-end homes (“luxury housing”), significantly above the median price, he expects to see larger drops in values.
He also mentioned that Zillow is predicting a 1.8% price decline this year, as an average across all markets, corroborating his own predictions.
This is good news in light of the fact that some market watchers were predicting 10% price declines this year.
Habib also predicts that unemployment will peak at about 20%, up from his current estimate of 18% (he says his numbers are more accurate than the government’s b/c he uses more recent data among other things).
HERE IS THE REALLY GOOD NEWS
Habib is predicting a 6% average appreciation across all housing markets in 2021.
The reason is the same thing I have been repeating over and over- a huge surge of millennials is just now coming into homebuying range.
So the demand for housing will greatly exceed supply, pushing up prices.
COVID-19 is actually exacerbating this issue too b/c so many homebuilders were forced to put the brakes on construction b/c of the crisis.
WHAT ABOUT AGENTS WHO ARE UNABLE TO LEAVE THEIR HOMES?
I blogged yesterday about the need to keep on selling and marketing, despite the COVID-19 crisis.
And I received feedback from agents who are simply unable to leave home right now b/c of family obligations or health issues.
I was asked for suggestions with respect to what they should do.
I first want to apologize to all of those agents who are unable to leave their homes, as I did not mean to come across as insensitive to their situations.
I also want to encourage those agents to reach out to our Agent Support Team to discuss multiple ideas for selling and marketing from home.
These ideas (borrowed from successful agents we work with) include: (1) partnering with a new, hungry and more mobile agent; (2) using our tech solutions to very effectively market from home; and (3) using title companies to help courier documents.
Jay Voorhees
Founder/Broker | JVM Lending
(855) 855-4491 | DRE# 1197176, NMLS# 310167
