Gazing into their crystal balls, local Realtors foresee clouded globes.
\nBut not to worry, It\u2019s going to take some time to sort through the COVID-19 pandemic and its myriad consequences, agree agents Gregg Whitney and Scott Booth.
\n“It\u2019s almost premature to say anything that\u2019s going to give much insight as they\u2019ve pretty much barred real estate agents from working for the next two weeks,” said Whitney of La Jolla. “They\u2019ve shut down everything right now.”
\n“It\u2019s definitely been slow the last couple weeks,” noted Booth, who sells real estate in both Pacific Beach and La Jolla. “We had some deals that were in escrow that got canceled. Not a lot, but a few. Some of it was coronavirus fear. Some were (shortage of) cash to close with the stock market being down. People don\u2019t want to sell their stock at such a huge discount to buy a house. They\u2019re just holding off for now.”
\nWhitney, however, feels this market pause “is a good thing.”
\n“Everything is slow right now,” he noted. “But we\u2019re still selling property, though it\u2019s a little bit more of a trying time.”
\n“The world is going to change after all this,” predicted Booth. “As far as real estate goes, I see a little dip, temporarily. As long as this all passes, there\u2019s still a lot of demand \u2013 and not a lot of inventory here at the coast.”
\nWhitney suggested we may have to wait until July to get a good read on what\u2019s really happening now with San Diego coastal real estate. “It\u2019s hard to really gauge the market right now,” he said. “Hopefully, this virus will peak out by July, and then we may end up seeing interest rates come down considerably in the latter part of this year. The feds are doing everything they can for the market on the commercial banking side with the $500 billion stimuli they did last week. They want to keep printing money as quickly as possible.”
\nBooth concurs that what impact the virus is likely to have on the housing market could “hinge on what the banks do with interest rates. “If those rates creep up, and there\u2019s still a lot of demand, there still won\u2019t be a lot of inventory,” he said. “But I really don\u2019t see that being the case here. It\u2019s just people being cautious.”
\nAdded Booth, “In the short term, I see a huge slowdown in real estate sales and pricing. As long as people still have jobs though, I think it will be good.”
\nWhitney pointed out he\u2019s optimistic that “once we get through the next four months,” the real estate market will return to normalcy because “people need to buy and sell homes, though they may be downsizing and staying closer to home, which bodes well for us agents.”
\nNoted Whitney, “I think it will be a vibrant market for first-time buyers because interest rates are really good, and there are opportunities for first-time buyers. Unless unemployment spikes up, it could be the best opportunity for first-time buyers in a decade or more.”
\nOn the high end of the real estate market, Whitney noted that buyers may be persuaded to “just take this price right now. I don\u2019t think they\u2019re controlled as much with stock. They\u2019re pretty well insulated. They can sit on their property if they want to.”
\nAdded Whitney, “In past marketplaces, it\u2019s typical for people on the high end to stay put, because they have insecurities with the market. So they\u2019ll just rent it (property) out until the stock market clears up, then, a year from now, put their property back on the market.”
\nWhitney suggested there may be a new “dynamic” at work, should interest rates fall below 3% the latter part of this year.
\n“Then, they\u2019ll get good value,” he said adding, “We may have to go eight to 12 months, with a coronavirus vaccine on the horizon, to get a good valuation in this market. Lower interest rates may drive people back into the market. It\u2019s just really hard to see exactly what will happen after just four months. It may take some time before we see some clarity in the market.”
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Gazing into their crystal balls, local Realtors foresee clouded globes. But not to worry, It\u2019s going to take some time to sort through the COVID-19 pandemic and its myriad consequences, agree agents Gregg Whitney and Scott Booth. “It\u2019s almost premature to say anything that\u2019s going to give much insight as they\u2019ve pretty much barred real […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":275685,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"Real estate market pauses, but a return to normalcy will occur","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[12360,11560,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-275686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-duplicate","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}