For the latest numbers - click to see Real Estate Market Update April 23
Our country is experiencing a major health crisis, not one driven by economics, although there will be economic fall-out. To the relief of home buyers, home sellers and the real estate industry, housing is likely to be the first major sector of our economy to come back strong. The effects of COVID-19 on real estate are predicted to be short term compared to other sectors. There ARE buyers out there now, and people are still moving and relocating, at least that is the current consensus of many economists and market experts unless something drastically changes.
It’s been a very strong sellers’ market in the Boulder area since the end of the Great Recession around 2009-2010 and thank goodness for that as we’d be in a much different situation if we it weren’t. Silver lining alert… we are fortunate to live in this part of Colorado, if you weren’t already grateful for that for many other reasons!
Current homeowners and renters have some relief available to them now as well. The FHFA announced mid-March policies allowing for the suspension of both foreclosures and evictions for at least 60 days. Penalties and late fees on mortgage payments will be waived, and mortgages owned by Freddie Mac will receive payment relief by the provision of forbearance for up to 12 months. Homeowners should contact their own mortgage servicer and check HERE for additional information.
The market in Boulder and Broomfield Counties continues to respond proportionally given the current restrictions on real estate practices as specified in Colorado’s stay at home orders. Most experts predict that the majority of US real estate markets will activity drop off and transaction volume dip to around 50% of “normal”.
Last week (April 8 through April 15) the number of residential and attached homes sold in Boulder and Broomfield Counties was exactly the same as compared to the same week in 2019. This could be due in part to a carryover of buyer activity in February and early March when real estate activities were not restricted, but it’s also an indicator that some folks in our area still need to move and are in a position to do so.
Other metrics comparing this year to last continue to show that our market activity has approached that predicted 50% mark – new listings were down almost 57%, under contract and pending transactions were also down just under 60%. The number of properties withdrawn from the market is actually slightly down about 9% compared to last year and over 75% compared to previous years. More sellers could be willing to wait out the pandemic-related home marketing challenges and could be nervous about their ability to yield top dollar for their home sale under the current conditions.
Of the new properties listed in the last week, almost 55% of those in Boulder and Broomfield Counties were in the $300,000- $599,999 range. Longmont is the listing winner this week with almost 40% of area properties listed there while the share of Boulder listings fell to 20%. Lafayette had 14% of the listings this week and only 4% of the listings were in Broomfield.
Over the last few weeks we’ve been looking at the sell-through rate, the ratio of under contract and pending properties to the number of new listings, irrespective of the volume of activity taking place. This indicates how active our market is and the bigger the % the stronger and more robust our market is. The sell-through rate last week of 83.5% indicates are market is very active continues to be a “sellers’ market”.
We are also tracking back 3 weeks at a time to see how the relevant metrics in our market are changing as the stay at home orders continue. We’ve said it before, but the Colorado economy and our local real estate market were strong before COVID-19 and will be strong again.
