With so many people suffering cash flow problems are you seeing a softening of the housing market in your area?

What do the SIGforum experts say about the near future of the housing market?

I'm trying to sell my mothers home in the Napa, CA area (slightly north of Napa). The market is dead there and has been since March in my humble opinion.

I listed a desirable piece of commercial property at an attractive price on March 1 with the area's premier commercial broker. I talked to him a week ago and he said it's like a faucet was turned off. No activity. Residential may be different but I doubt it.

Yes. I think it’s pretty obvious prices are going to come down.

Nobody is doing anything unless they have no choice due to deals made before this mess hit.
I think it will be a few months before we start to get an idea of how quickly this shakes out.

I'm really thankful that we completed the sale of our house in Las Vegas 2-20. Wouldn't want to be needing to sell right now.

I live in a neighborhood that has less than 20 houses over 14 years and for the first time ever there are 3 lots being staked at the same time for 3 new homes.

Seems pricing is actually going up around me. Apparently the local school district is now THE place to live in the area, so houses are stupid expensive. I will say there are fewer listings as people are gonna ride out the storm instead of lower prices.

It depends on local right now. The market is strong in certain area's where there is little inventory and desirable area's of the country. Obviously that is not everywhere. But it does not mean that there is not good markets in places. Even now.

I'm trying to sell a house, and it's sloooooooow.

Identical houses in my subdivision were selling in under a week before mid-March. Whereas we hit 30 days on the market today, with no offers yet.

I have six new homes being built on my street alone in SWFL. Tons of construction so someone must be buying them.

There's no way I'd be buying a new house, or trying to sell my existing one, unless I had a LOT of disposable cash laying around that would not affect my lifestyle at all during the current situation.

Even if you think your job is secure, and maybe it is, there is no guarantee that your paycheck and income could not be cut down. Even those whose pay comes from taxes being paid will find this out. If people do not have the income and money to pay taxes, those whose jobs are funded through tax money, of some sort or another, including schools, etc, will find that adjustments will have to be made to balance things out.

I wish you the best of success in selling your existing home and going with the best life forward that you have planned for.

Some friends of ours just sold their house -- it was only on the market for 23 days here in the middle of the Midwest.

Probably depends on location. Here in NW Montana, I don't think we'll see a big decrease in values - perhaps a slowdown. Rates are so darn cheap, why wait mentality will probably rein.

It is soft here and it sucks. I’ve been waiting for a downturn and my lease is up next month...but I got furloughed and am living on the savings that I was saving to buy that house.

The guys in the cul-d-sac talk every night after work (don't worry, we're 6' apart). My neighbor's wife is working long-hours and averaging about 11 closings a day right now. He doesn't know which percentage are refinancing vs sales.

Every lease listing we've put up has been snatched up in a matter of says.

It's too early to say what housing *prices* are going to do. Transactions have definitely dropped off a cliff, but that means both sellers AND buyers have stopped transacting.

It's an uncertain world right now, and everyone is just basically putting their lives on pause to see how this whole virus thing blows over. When it does blow over, who knows what's going to happen. Demand might drop off because of financial instability, but supply might drop off as well as people have been refinancing into super low rates and need to hang onto their real estate assets while they wait for their financial accounts to rebound.

There's also a ton of millennials just waiting in the fringes to snap up anything that remotely looks like a good deal, so even if there's a drop in price, it might not be a very deep drop.

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:
There's also a ton of millennials just waiting in the fringes to snap up anything that remotely looks like a good deal, so even if there's a drop in price, it might not be a very deep drop.

You really believe that?

It seems to go 100% against what I’ve seen so far with Millennials; that they aren’t really interested in buying homes and are more than happy to rent.

Around here in the Philly burbs it seems like all they are building are high rise apartment/condo complexes that resemble fancy dormitories and the Millennials are renting them like crazy.

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles
There's also a ton of millennials just waiting in the fringes to snap up anything that remotely looks like a good deal, so even if there's a drop in price, it might not be a very deep drop.

Agreed. I believe Aeteocles and I are both part of that cohort, (apologies if I am mistaken), and I just purchased a home in South Florida. Remember that the youngest Millennial is now 24, with the oldest 39, and therefore most are looking at single family residences than “the newest high-rise”.

A few of the smaller banks are hungry, but for the most part banks are hunkering down, not making loans and hoping everything's rosy by Christmas. Prices may come down (which is great if you've got cash), but finding a loan could be tough.