Read the blog below:
Anthony: Corona, corona, corona. This is a crazy situation, isn’t it, my friends? Really is bizarre, but if you look back in history, every 10 or so years, there’s some kind of event that tips over the stock market and causes people to start to freak out about real estate. It happens. This happened in ’09, which is a much different financial time. We had a complete economy that was failing. We don’t have that now at all, even with stock market going down. It happened in ’01. I remember in ’01, I was working in my dad’s business and our phone didn’t ring for literally three weeks, didn’t ring it all. Then it turned right back on like a switch.
Here I am at the LeadingRE Conference in Vegas, and I’m talking with other broker owners who are some of which are much more experienced than me. We’re talking about when this kind of thing happens. All week, I’ve been thinking, what should we expect here on the market. So far, if you watch my video that I did on Lamacchia Realty, I was talking more to buyers and sellers there. That was my main audience. What I discussed there is so far, we’re not seeing a big change in buyer and seller activity. I did that video, I want to say, on Monday or Tuesday.
Pendings are still up, properties being listed still growing each week as it should at this time of year, buyer activity is still very strong, open houses are packed. I’m starting in the last two days to see signs of that may be changing, but I’ll tell you something. In Massachusetts, 2,400 open houses scheduled for this weekend as of this morning at 11:00. Today at four o’clock, there was 300 or 400 more. I think it was 2,400 in the morning, 2,700 in the afternoon. That’s what I meant to say, sorry, but what I’m getting at guys is, what’s the big picture here? What’s going to happen?
I know some of you are starting to get questions from buyers. “Oh my God, our house price is going to go in half? Is this house I’m buying going to be worth 200 less?” This is completely crazy talk. Crazy talk. We do not have a sinking economy, folks. We have a strong economy, 278,000 jobs created in February. That was announced last week. Lowest unemployment rate that we’ve ever seen. People are busy. Now, is that going to have a major bump in the road or maybe go through a crater and get a flat tire along the way and then get rolling again? Yes, it’s pretty clear, we’re going to hit one of those times.
I think what we’re going to see is buyer and seller activity in behavior change a little bit for two to three weeks. I know there’s a lot of school cancellations that are coming out, and then market will pick up again. The good thing we have going for us, my realtor friends, is we are at the time of year where demand is very, very high. If this was fall, I think we would see a much more severe impact on the real estate market, but it’s not fall. It’s spring. Demand is extremely high. Even if demand goes down, say 20 or 30%, it’s still going to be very strong and we won’t notice it because demand is so high. I shouldn’t say we won’t notice it. We’ll notice it at a minimum.
If I was you, and we have a job, folks. We have to advise clients and we have to be honest. I would tell them the truth. I would say, “Look, there’s clearly going to be a little bit of an interruption in the market. There will likely be less inventory coming on.” That benefits a seller, by the way. The sellers that list when there’s less inventory on, we all know, do better, but I don’t see anything major happen. These interest rates are unbelievable, lowest in history. You need to be talking to your buyers about that. That’s about it, guys. Honestly, even if all of us get stuck in our homes for two to three weeks, I’m sorry, I do not see the real estate market falling off a cliff. I don’t see it. Period. I don’t.
Do I think there will be an interruption? Do I think sales will lag? Do I think we’re going to have delays because of interest rates being so low and there’s so many refi? Yes, I do. This is like a storm we’re going through. It’s like a bright sunny day for years and now we’ve got a storm on us. Storms don’t last forever. You get to the other side of it. There’s pent up demand, people will go wild. We’ll still have a very busy year. That’s my message. I’ll be back to you guys later, probably this weekend or Monday talking in more details as things change, but I wanted to get an update to you and I’ve got to get in there and get on the stage. See you.