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There’s an elephant looking over my shoulder as I write this month’s stats article from my home office, “COVID-19”. The question on all of our minds is; how big an impact is this currently having and going to have for both the short term and the long term?
We can actually get fairly good real time data to answer the first part of that question. ShowingTime, a national showing service provider, has released their showing data that illustrates the impact of COVID-19 in the markets they set showings in. Here’s the link (updated daily):
https://www.showingtime.com/impact-of-coronavirus/
I’ve taken screenshots of their data for Colorado and all of N. America as of March 25th, 2020. Their Colorado data is definitely concerning. Hopefully that little move at the end, circled in green, is a moderation to the reduction in showing activity we’ve seen over the last 2 weeks, down 49% from the peak. As I write this on March 26th, the State of Colorado has enacted a “Stay at Home” order which may further affect our showing traffic.
The national numbers are very similar to Colorado’s but do not have the moderation in the most recent data. This may be an early indicator that Colorado’s desirability, low levels of housing inventory and low mortgage rates may shelter us somewhat from the impact of COVID-19. At the ShowingTime site, you can look at every state and three Canadian provinces. Some interesting differences amongst all of those data sets, but everyone is being affected.
Since this situation is changing hourly, very hard to confidently make predictions for the future. I will say I think there will be short term impacts due to social distancing and Stay at Home orders. I think longer term impacts will be determined by the economic impacts of the virus. Will there be long term job losses, how do the financial markets recover from their current lowered levels and what positive impact does the Coronavirus Relief package being debated in Washington have on the economy? The answers to those questions will define our long term impacts.
Be healthy everyone!
Malec – RE/MAX of Boulder, Inc. – 303-588-5716
