Real Estate Industry News You May Have Missed

We know you’re fielding questions from consumers so we’ve scoured real estate related news stories to bring you the ones that will help you answer those questions.

The supply and demand rollercoaster

Worldwide, housing markets are changing. As of March 26, demand in the UK is down and there has been an increase in the number of sales that have fallen through,” according to Nicu Calcea at Zoopla.co.uk.

However, here in the U.S. conditions are fairing much better. In fact, they reflect our favorite “location, location, location” mantra.

For instance, an agent in Albuquerque, NM states that the market is “still rocking.”

Christian Murdock, with Gazette.com says that the Colorado Springs, CO market is not only still strong, but “Home sales increased; prices soared to another record high, and builders enjoyed their best month in more than a year.”

Of course, it’s to be expected that some areas are being temporarily impacted by the stay-at-home orders. Realtor.com stated during the week of March 28, the number of new listings (nationally) decreased over this time last year.

The good news for buyers, however, is that homes coming on the market are less expensive.

“The median asking price for newly-listed homes last week was $309,000—$21,000, lower than two weeks earlier,” according to Katz.

Do check out this Redfin article for some interesting charts and graphs.

Will the iBuyer model survive?

According to Brenda Richardson at Forbes.com, iBuyers, such as Opendoor, Zillow, Redfin, and others, are taking a break from the housing market.

They are, in her estimation, “… in a state of limbo. What the iBuyer landscape will look like when the dust settles is a big question mark.”

One Zillow listing client explained to Richardson that Zillow canceled his home purchase 10 days before closing.

According to Richardson, the cancellation paperwork told him he had 48 hours to “. . . to choose between two options from Zillow: ‘I could take a check for $5,000. That’s $1,000 in earnest money that they were contractually obligated to pay me for breaking the contract and $4,000 extra for the trouble. Or they would pay for a Realtor to relist the house. They were just going to cancel the contract and walk away.’”

He took the money. “We absolutely could have closed on this house without ever having to break any sort of guidelines around social distancing,” he explained to Richardson.

“And so for Zillow to blame what’s going on from a health-care standpoint for their financial decision to break this contract and put that burden back on me and their customers is really insulting.”

Maybe he’ll choose a real, live, professional and experienced real estate agent next time?

MOST IMPORTANT: Free telemedicine for REALTORS®

Your association is certainly looking out for you during this crisis. According to the Members TeleHealth site, the NAR has funded two free months of TeleHealth services for members.

You don’t have much time, however, you need to sign up by April 15 and you can do so at RealtorsInsuranceMarketplace.com.