Real estate companies report spike of demand for virtual home showings

As more people are urged to stay home due to the coronavirus, many are still proving that they are interested in purchasing a home.

Although many real estate companies have paused home showings, the desire for digital home showings have risen rapidly.

In a new report from Redfin, the brokerage said it saw a 494% increase in requests for agent-led video home tours last week alone. As of Sunday, 18.9% of its tour requests from Redfin.com were video-chat tour requests, which was up from 0.2% at the beginning of March, a 94-fold increase, the company said.

“The future of real estate has come earlier than any of us could have anticipated,” Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman said in a statement. “The way things are during the pandemic won’t last forever, but at the end of all this, things won’t go back to the way they were either. We hope we’re well prepared.”

Redfin announced last week that it would be suspending open houses and would move to a virtual home showing environment.

“During video tours, I become the eye of the buyer,” Indianapolis Redfin agent Jill Thompson said in a statement. “I’m talking more than I would on a traditional tour, pointing out things that would be obvious in-person but that aren’t as clear through a camera lens, like the quality of workmanship on any repairs or whether or not a room would fit a king-size bed.”

Zillow, which also recently announced it was pressing pause on its iBuying platform, said it has seen a dramatic increase in its 3D home tours as well.

Last week, Zillow said it saw a 191% increase in the creation of 3D home tours, and a jump of 326% on Friday, when compared with the average number of tours created in February.

Based on data collected before COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, Zillow listings including a 3D Home tour were saved by users 50% more, and those homes sold on average 10% faster.

“This is an unprecedented time and there certainly are people who still need to buy, sell or rent a home as they navigate public health orders and social distancing requirements,” Zillow spokesperson Matt Kreamer said to HousingWire. “We’re excited to see our free tools are helping that effort as we all work to flatten the curve.”

Jay Papasan, vice president of learning at Keller Williams, told HousingWire that offering 3D virtual tours and scheduling live virtual houses is a key solution for agents during this time.

“Once a novelty, virtual home tours are rapidly becoming the norm in many markets,” Papasan said. “And, the spikes in virtual home tour activities in any given area seems to depend on the strictness of local COVID-19 ordinances is what we’re finding. In the most strict, the sellers themselves serve as camera operators while the agents and buyers watch online.”

“In most areas, agents are able to host virtual tours on their phones with common video conference apps,” Papasan continued. “Buyers can then ask questions and direct the camera to areas of interest.”

Summit County’s adoptable pets for the week of March 29, 2020

Nutmeg | Michael Yeraout Photography

The following animals are available for adoption at the Summit County Animal Shelter. Call the shelter at 970-668-3230 with questions. The most recent list of animals available for adoption can be found via their website.

Cats

CATALONIA, 8 years, domestic shorthair mix, white and gray, spayed female

CLARA BOW, 7 months, domestic shorthair, brown tabby, spayed female 

JENNYANYDOTS, 12 weeks, domestic shorthair, black, spayed female

KRIS, 4 years, domestic longhair, black and white, spayed female 

MARIA, 7 years, domestic shorthair, gray tabby, spayed female

MINERVA, 2 years, domestic shorthair, calico tabby, spayed female

NIJA, 4 years, domestic shorthair, gray tabby, spayed female

NUTMEG, 4 years, domestic shorthair mix, tortoiseshell, spayed female

PENELOPE, 3 years, domestic shorthair, gray tabby, spayed female

TINKERBELL, 7 years, domestic shorthair, gray and white tabby, spayed female 

Dogs

BELLA, 8 months, pit bull terrier, brown and white, spayed female

BENTLEY, no age, pit bull terrier and Weimaraner mix, silver, unaltered male

CHAPO, 1 year, bull terrier, black, neutered male

HAWAII, 3 years, Labrador retriever and pit bull terrier mix, black and brown, spayed female

LUNA, 8 years, German shepherd mix, black and brown, spayed female

RUDY, 3 years, Labrador retriever and Carolina dog mix, brown and black, neutered male

TARA, 4 years, pit bull terrier, chocolate and white, spayed female

COVID-19 economic crisis not yet reflected in Summit County real estate market

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Realtors are finding creative ways to show houses to clients and keep the real estate market afloat amid the new coronavirus outbreak.

While the local economy grinds to a halt amid the countywide shutdown, there is no significant drop in the real estate market — yet. According to real estate data from March 1-25, pending sales were more than five times higher and sales were down only slightly compared with the same dates in 2019. Through Wednesday, there were 75 pending properties in Summit County this month compared with 13 through the same date in March 2019. The number of sold properties this month is down five versus March 2019, a difference of about 6%.

Dana Cottrell, president of the Summit Association of Realtors, said local Realtors are still showing houses in person, though the showings are looking quite different than they did before the novel coronavirus appeared in Summit County. 

“My own personal experience is that showings have slowed down, but they’re still happening,” Cottrell said. 

When people go to see a home, Cottrell said they do not travel in the same car as their Realtor, and they carry sanitizer and sanitizing wipes with them. She said brokers are often going through the property prior to a home showing and fully disinfecting surfaces to make people feel more comfortable. If a buyer is viewing a home at this time, they are typically very serious about buying soon, she said. Cottrell also noted that an owner is more apt to allow interested buyers to view a home if it is not occupied full time — something that is true of many homes on the market in Summit County. 

Cottrell explained that Realtors have various virtual methods to contact their clients, including 3-D “fly-through” tours of listed homes and communicative videos. She also said that some parts of buying a home that are typically done in person, such as notarization, are moving toward digital or low-contact methods.

“The more we can push to remote, the better chance we have,” Cottrell said. “I think as brokers, we are going to really show our value to find unique ways to keep the market moving forward.”

As for changes to prices, Cottrell said it is too soon to know whether the pandemic is affecting local home prices and that any potential drop in prices would depend on how long the outbreak and subsequent changes in the community last.  “It’s really pushing us as Realtors to reach out and be of benefit to our market in new ways,” Cottrell said.

Fed Chairman contradicts Trump’s coronavirus timeline

Powell says COVID-19 will set the timeline for reopening the U.S. economy

 

 

In a rare television interview, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell told Today show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie the U.S. economy can’t reopen until the coronavirus pandemic is under control.

“The virus is going to set the timeline,” a grim-looking Powell said on the NBC morning show on Thursday.

Powell’s comments contradict President Donald Trump’s calls for “packed churches” on Easter, just over two weeks away. Easter Sunday would be a “beautiful timeline” for reopening the economy, Trump said at a press briefing at the White House on Tuesday.

The Fed chairman had a different outlook.

“The sooner we get the spread of the virus under control, people will regain confidence,” Powell said in the interview. “When they become confident that is the case, they will very willingly open their businesses up, go back to work, the consumer will be spending. So I think the first order of business will be to get the spread of the virus under control and then resume economic activity.”

The head of the central bank rarely gives sit-down interviews. He typically only speaks to reporters during formal press conferences after the Fed’s meetings to answer questions on monetary policy. 

During the financial crisis, as the U.S. teetered on the brink of a depression, Ben Bernanke, then chairman of the Fed, never took part in a TV interview.

While Guthrie asked Powell the obligatory question about an economic recession, and Powell affirmed the U.S. likely is experiencing a GDP contraction, that wasn’t the news. There is no major U.S. economic forecaster who isn’t projecting a recession

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However, the chairman’s projected it likely would be short, and the rebound sharp. The Fed pledged on Monday it would buy unlimited bonds and take other measures to keep credit flowing.

“This is a unique situation,” said Powell. “This is not a typical downturn” because it’s not due to an underlying weakness in the economy or instability in the banking system, he said.

Republican and Democratic state governors have issued “stay at home” orders for more than half the U.S. population, restricting activity to necessary tasks such as shopping for food. The goal is to slow the spread of the coronavirus to avoid overwhelming hospitals.

States with stay-at-home orders include Ohio, Michigan, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York and Utah. 

Other states, such as Texas and Pennsylvania, have issued restrictions in some counties.

Part of the reason people are being urged to stay at home is the breakdown in testing – in the absence of a quick way to know who is carrying COVID-19, people have to act as if anyone might be carrying the disease. 

Nations doing widespread testing, like Iceland, have found about half the people who test positive for the disease are showing no symptoms, yet are still contagious.

 In the U.S., testing for COVID-19 is still limited, and the disease is still on the upswing. Public health officials in many areas of the country have said in recent days that tests are restricted to health care workers and hospitalized patients because of a shortage of test kits, swabs to administer the tests, and protective equipment to keep safe the workers doing the testing. In most cases it takes days, and sometimes more than a week, to get results.

“We would tend to listen to the experts,” for setting a timetable to resume normal activity, Powell said in the NBC interview, citing Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force

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Trump has nixed that type of sentiment, saying at a White House briefing on Tuesday that if public health experts had their way they would “shut down the entire world.” The president pointed out in a tweet on Tuesday that people are killed in car crashes, but the U.S. still allows driving.

“Look at automobile accidents, which are far greater than any numbers we’re talking about,” Trump said in the tweet. “That doesn’t mean we’re going to tell everybody, ‘No more driving of cars.’ So we have to do things to get our country open.”

In fact, while the White House issued guidelines recommending social distancing for 15 days to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Trump didn’t shut down any states, and it would be difficult for him to force unwilling governors to rescind those orders.

Powell said in the Today interview it’s better to rely on the experts.

“We’re not experts in pandemics over here,” he said, referring to the Federal Reserve. “We don’t get to make that decision. I would say that we would tend to listen to the experts.”

Fed announces unlimited purchases of MBS and Treasuries, adds multifamily mortgages

“Quantitative easing” is aimed at greasing the wheels of the credit markets

The Federal Reserve announced on Monday that it will buy unlimited amounts of Treasuries and agency mortgages, including multifamily, to grease the wheels of the credit markets.

The purchases are attempts to avoid the type of credit crunch seen after the collapse of the financial system in 2008.

Monday’s announcement came eight days after Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank would restart a quantitative easing, or QE, program created a decade ago. It was slated to be $700 billion in bond purchases, but within the first week, the market specialists who execute those purchases had burned through half of that.

The new move to make unlimited purchases is intended “to support the flow of credit to households and businesses by addressing strains in the markets for Treasury securities and agency mortgage-backed securities,” the Fed said in a statement before stock markets opened on Monday. “The Federal Reserve will continue to purchase Treasury securities and agency mortgage-backed securities in the amounts needed to support smooth market functioning.”

The bond-buying is aimed at providing liquidity and pushing rates lower, which would bolster the economy. The first QE program, announced in December 2008, drove mortgage rates below 5% for the first time ever. This time, it could drive rates below 3%.

Market disruptions have caused some lenders to add a risk premium to mortgage pricing in recent weeks, causing interest rates to rise. 

When things settle down, rates could settle down as well, Frank Nothaft, CoreLogic‘s chief economist, told HousingWire last week.

“It may not be tomorrow or next week, but I think longer term as we look to the spring, yes, I think we could see rates moving down to new lows and possibly below 3%,” Nothaft said. “It’s certainly possible.”

Following this morning’s Fed announcement, the NY Fed issued a statement revising its mortgage-bond purchase schedule issued last week. 

The bond purchases probably will total at least $125 billion a day, it said. “The desk plans to conduct operations totaling approximately $75 billion of Treasury securities and approximately $50 billion of agency MBS each business day this week, subject to reasonable prices,” the New York Fed said. 

“The desk will begin agency CMBS purchases this week,” it said, referring to commercial mortgage-backed securities, without citing a target amount.

In the last week, the Fed has resurrected many of the measures it used during the 2008 financial crisis. It cut interest rates to near zero, re-launched QE bond-buying and opened emergency lending windows to support commercial paper issuers and money market funds.

It has also added new tactics – such as Monday’s announcement that it would buy agency-backed commercial mortgages, which typically are used to build apartment buildings.

The Fed also said it would set up programs to ensure credit flows to corporations and state and local governments. That includes buying municipal debt, which will provide cash to the communities who are on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“The Depression was about the Fed moving too slowly,” Neil Dutta, head of economics at Renaissance Macro Research, told Bloomberg News. “We are seeing a lot of things today. But, a slow-moving Fed hasn’t been one of them. That’s encouraging.”

Summit County’s adoptable pets for the week of March 22, 2020

 

Morris | Michael Yearout Photography

The following animals are available for adoption at the Summit County Animal Shelter. Call the shelter at 970-668-3230 with questions. The most recent list of animals available for adoption can be found via their website.  
 

Cats

ASHTON, 10 months, domestic shorthair, black, neutered male

ASPARAGUS, 11 weeks, domestic shorthair, black and white, unaltered male 

CATALONIA, 8 years, domestic shorthair mix, white and gray, spayed female

CLARA BOW, 7 months, domestic shorthair, brown tabby, spayed female 

DECKER, 3 years, domestic shorthair, brown tabby, neutered male

JENNYANYDOTS, 11 weeks, domestic shorthair, black, unaltered female

JINGLES, 4 years, domestic shorthair, orange and white, neutered male

KRIS, 4 years, domestic longhair, black and white, spayed female

MARIA, 7 years, domestic shorthair, gray tabby, spayed female

MINERVA, 2 years, domestic shorthair, calico tabby, spayed female

MORRIS, 6 years, domestic shorthair mix, apricot, neutered male

MR MISTOFFELEES, 11 weeks, domestic shorthair, black, unaltered male

MUNGOJERRIE, 11 weeks, domestic shorthair, calico, unaltered female

NIJA, 4 years, domestic shorthair, gray tabby, spayed female

NUTMEG, 4 years, domestic shorthair mix, tortoiseshell, spayed female

PENELOPE, 3 years, domestic shorthair, gray tabby, spayed female

RUM TUM TUGGER, 11 weeks, domestic shorthair, black and white, unaltered male

TINKERBELL, 7 years, domestic shorthair, gray white tabby, spayed female

WINK, 2 years, domestic shorthair, tortoiseshell, unaltered female

Dogs

BELLA, 8 months, pit bull terrier, brown and white, spayed female

CHAPO, 1 year, bull terrier, black, neutered male

HAWAII, 3 years, Labrador retriever and pit bull terrier mix, black and brown, spayed female

LEVI, 4 years, pit bull terrier, blue and white, neutered male

LUNA, 8 years, German shepherd mix, black and brown, spayed female

PICARD, 1 year, pit bull terrier and beagle mix, black and white, neutered male

REMINGTON, 1 year, Parson (Jack) Russell terrier mix, white and black, neutered male

RILEY, 1 year, Siberian husky, black and white, neutered male

RUDY, 3 years, Labrador retriever and Carolina dog mix, brown and black, neutered male

TARA, 4 years, pit bull terrier, chocolate and white, spayed female

TURTLE, 1 year, black mouth vur mix, tan and black, neutered male

Guinea Pigs

GIZMO, no age, Guinea pig, brown and white, unknown gender

PIKACHU, no age, Guinea pig, calico, unknown gender