Housing Market Showing Signs of the Coronavirus Pandemic

Jacob Passy reports: “March started out as a strong month for the U.S. housing market — but by the second half of the month, the first indications that the coronavirus pandemic would weigh on home-selling activity began to emerge, according to a new report from Realtor.com.”

“In the weeks ending March 21 and March 28, the number of newly-listed properties fell by 13.1% and 34% respectively when compared with the same period a year ago,” according to Passy’s explanation of the report. 

Also: “Home list prices were only up 3.3% year-over-year for the week ending March 21, and 2.5% for the following week. This represented the slowest pace of listing price growth since Realtor.com started tracking this data in 2013.”

Looking a little further into the future, Passy also reports (in a separate article) on comments by Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mark Calabria, who on April 2 warned about the “canary in the coal mine” of the potential for the coronavirus pandemic to cause a foreclosure crisis, namely with loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). Comparatively, according to Calabria, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae should be on more solid footing.

For evidence of the pandemic's effect on the rental housing market, Elijah Chiland reports that Los Angeles rental prices dropped in March for the first time since 2010.