Home sellers are pulling back as coronavirus worries grow.
A few months back, experts predicted that 2020 would see a “historic low level” of housing inventory. As March data begins to emerge, it appears those projections may soon ring true.
According to data from real estate brokerage Redfin, housing supply is rapidly declining in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak.
In the week ending March 29, more than 28,000 sellers took their homes off the market—a 148% jump over this time last year. In total, 4% of all homes on the market were de-listed, about twice the normal rate.
According to Adam Weiner, chief growth officer at Redfin, sellers are worried about the exposure that listing their homes might come with.
“If buyers are concerned about buying during the pandemic, sellers are doubly concerned about selling,” Weiner said. “The idea of having anyone outside your immediate family walk through your home would set even the most stalwart homeowner on edge.”
Sellers in Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia were especially prone to pullbacks. In all three, 6% of all active listings were taken off the market last week. Dallas and Denver saw 5% of all listings removed.
Here how de-listings looked across Redfin’s top 12 markets:
This chart shows how sellers are reacting to the COVID-19 outbreak in the country's largest markets.
To make matters worse, new sellers aren’t coming to the table either. Redfin’s data shows a 33% drop in new listings last week and even double that amount in some markets (Detroit and Philadelphia, namely).
According to Realtor.com, new sellers are down the most in places like Phoenix (-42%), Milwaukee (-36.2%) and San Diego (-33.4%).
Here’s how Redfin’s Lily Katz sums it up: “The impacts of the coronavirus pandemic are rippling through to nearly every segment of the economy, and the housing market is no exception. The outbreak has driven sudden changes in behavior among homebuyers and sellers in the United States, which now has more reported cases of COVID-19 than any other country in the world.”
