Home sales report shows market’s first weeks dealing with pandemic and social distancing
Back in the early months of 2020, pre-coronavirus, Tacoma was ranked as one of the fastest-selling home markets nationwide, complete with bidding wars and a severe inventory shortage.
With March sales figures released Monday by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, a new picture is emerging in how things are going since the governor’s “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” order has taken hold in a bid to slow the spread of COVID-19 cases and the resulting upended economy.
NWMLS noted in a news release accompanying the report: “Northwest MLS brokers emphasized the numbers do not yet reflect the impact the coronavirus pandemic is having on local real estate.”
Still, a market already squeezed for inventory shows some initial effects.
Pierce County numbers for March show 1,099 closed sales of existing homes and condos, down 10.4 percent from the previous year, with pending sales down nearly 11 percent year over year.
In Thurston County, a total of 368 closed sales of existing homes and condos put the county at 3.1 percent above the same period last year, but with pending sales down 12.7 percent year over year.
Pierce County hit a new benchmark in March, with the median closed sale price for existing single-family homes at $410,000, up 12.9 percent over last year.
Thurston County’s median closed sale price for homes was $355,000, up 9 percent from the same time last year.
For comparison, King County was at $720,400 in its median closed sale price for existing homes in March, and Snohomish County was at $525,000. Kitsap County was at $390,000 and Mason County was at $286,000.
Windermere chief economist Matthew Gardner, in the NWMLS release, described the March figures as “essentially irrelevant given the fact that the economy went into free fall during the month.”
Gardner had little confidence in April’s results after the industry essentially paused as it adjusted to new guidelines and terms to maintain social distancing.
On March 17, NWMLS temporarily suspended in-person public and broker open houses in its 23-county system/market area in the state, among other measures.
“Following modifications made on March 28, brokers were urged to restrict in-person engagements and advised that limited personal interactions to show properties when necessary were permitted by appointment only with no more than two people, including the broker,” it noted in its release.
“The ability to transact business at all has been facilitated and allowed with tight restrictions and major concerns,” said Dick Beeson, managing broker at RE/MAX Northwest Realtors in Gig Harbor, in Monday’s release. “Like Interstate 5, if there’s an accident ahead, you creep along as you pass by it. The market is not totally stopped, but around half the business is on hold. And we’re creeping along right now.”
He added: “COVID-19 has put a new wrinkle in the Northwest real estate food chain. That wrinkle has produced fewer pending sales and fewer homes coming on the market, and that means buyers are taking more time to make decisions in this new environment.
“It also means sellers, for the first time in a long time, don’t have instantaneous offers and must exercise patience, too.”
This story was originally published April 7, 2020 at 1:51 PM.
