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The country is experiencing its worst bout of unemployment since the Great Depression.

The coronavirus pandemic has roiled the financial markets, disrupted the global supply chain, and resulted in an unemployment rate of 14.7% in April, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. As nonessential businesses have been forced to temporarily close to stem the spread of COVID-19, about 23.1 million Americans have found themselves furloughed or out of a job.

As dire as those numbers sound, the unemployment rate is likely much higher, in the range of 20% or more. That’s because the BLS looked at unemployment only for the week ending April 18. At least 7 million more Americans have filed for unemployment insurance since then, according to seasonally adjusted BLS data.

Since the housing market is closely tied to the economy, this painful period of joblessness will likely affect real estate.

“The numbers are terrible,” says realtor.com®’s chief economist, Danielle Hale. “It hasn’t started getting better yet, so the May numbers are going to look worse.”

Many potential buyers have been forced out of the market because they’ve lost jobs or income or have been furloughed. Many more would-be homeowners are worried about the security of their own jobs—and are therefore holding off on what could be the biggest purchase of their lives. And even those still intending to buy are finding it’s become harder to get a mortgage since the crisis began.

Some are dipping in to down payment savings to make ends meet, which could set them back even when the economy gets back on track.

“We’ve seen home sales decline because of the challenges,” says Hale.

That’s also because sellers are pulling the “For Sale” signs off their front yards and delaying listing their properties until the worst is over. With fewer buyers, they may be worried about getting lowballed. They may also be uncomfortable about having extra foot traffic through their homes during a pandemic. And many sellers are buyers, too, so they may want to wait until more homes hit the market.

“Any seller who has flexibility is probably choosing to wait until things get back a little closer to normal,” says Hale. “While there certainly are some home buyers in the market, there aren’t as many as there would be in a normal spring market.”

However, it’s not all bad news. As states and cities loosen restrictions, more buyers in those areas are pulling the trigger on purchasing homes again.

“The housing market is in [uncharted waters] right now, but … purchase mortgage applications have increased for three straight weeks,” Joel Kan, an economist with the Mortgage Bankers Association, said in a statement. “Prospective buyers [are] gradually returning in the various parts of the country that are reopening.”

The government’s stimulus is also likely to offset at least some of the pain. In addition, many workers are (hopefully) only furloughed. That leads some economists to believe the worst of the pain could be concentrated in the short term.

“If you want to look on the bright side, many people expect this is temporary and they’ll go back to their same jobs,” says Hale.

Even before the coronavirus crisis, many prospective home buyers were searching despite expecting a recession around the bend.

“There already was enough memory of the last recession that most homeowners go into the market thinking about whether they have enough savings to tide them over in the event that they lose a job or lose income,” Hale says.

The post What Will 15 Percent Unemployment Mean for the Housing Market? appeared first on Real Estate News Insights | realtor.com®.

Article source: https://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/What-Will-15-Percent-Unemployment-Mean-for-the-15257510.php

Driven by a dramatic slowdown in sales while listing activity has since rebounded, the number of homes on the market in San Francisco has jumped 35 percent over the past two weeks to 830, which is 26 percent more than at the same time last year and a 9-year seasonal high, a move which shouldn’t catch any plugged-in readers by surprise.

At a more granular level, the number of single-family homes listed for sale in the city (260) is now running 14 percent higher than at the same time last year while the number of condos (570) is over 30 percent higher versus the same time last year.

Keep in mind that inventory levels in San Francisco had already hit a 9-year high earlier this year, prior to plummeting in a COVID-19 related hit. And as we noted last week, the percentage of listings which have undergone at least one official price reduction has been ticking up as well.

We’ll keep you posted and plugged-in.

Article source: https://socketsite.com/archives/2020/05/number-of-homes-on-the-market-in-san-francisco-jumps.html

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (KRON) – Zillow economist Skylar Olsen says the nation is seeing more high-end homes listed on the market than any other kind.?

Possibly a sign sellers believe more buyers are looking to make a purchase.?

Olsen says new listings are still down 39-percent overall from last year, a dramatic drop accelerated by the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Overall, new listings have been rising for three straight weeks and, higher-end homes appear to be outperforming what’s considered more affordable.?

?“This is one of those knock on wood moments, but we do expect activity to improve from the radically low bottoms that we fell. At least our national forecast has a steady recovery projected into the future, of roughly 10-percent growth in the number of sales every month, which would put us back to February numbers, which honestly were looking very good, much better than previous years. It’ll put us back to February numbers around mid-end of 2021 because of that gradual and slow recovery,” Olsen said. ?

?Zillow, an online real estate database company, defines high-end in the San Francisco metro area as $1.5 million and above.?

In the San Jose metro area, the threshold for higher-end homes is $1.9 million.?

Last week in San Francisco, there was a 12.4 percent increase in high-end home listings and a 13.3 percent increase in more affordable listings.?

During that same time period in the South Bay, there was a 76.7 percent increase in expensive listings, compared to a 25.1 percent increase in more affordable homes.?

?“From frustrated years, home shopping seasons with low-low inventory, there were probably enough buyers reaching major life stages of home ownership, that it behooves them to look at this time,” Olsen said. ?

?Olsen says despite the paralyzing effects on the housing market caused by the pandemic, home prices have stayed mostly steady though she expects home values may fall some three-percent nationally by October.?

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Article source: https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/zillow-reports-resurgence-in-listings-for-higher-end-homes-in-bay-area/

• Thousands of white-collar employees have adapted to working from their homes during the pandemic, and remote work will likely be more widely accepted in a new era of office culture.
• That reality could accelerate an exodus of urbanites from expensive major cities to more affordable US locales.
• People were already leaving the San Francisco Bay Area in droves — the region’s housing supply is low, and housing and living costs are subsequently high.
• But many more may begin to opt for living outside of the region, including tech workers that have already been used to remote work in an industry where results are prioritized over mere office attendance.
• Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

When people start returning to work, it will look very different from what we were used to in the “Before Times” prior to the coronavirus pandemic.

Design firms say employers may have to implement one-way hallways to minimize cross-traffic. Workstations may be staggered. You might be a part of an office cohort with a few handfuls of your coworkers. You may only go into the office on days when you have group work, with individual tasks completed at home. There may be single-occupancy bathrooms, and the workday may be shorter to allow cleaning rooms ample time to conduct the kind of rigorous wipe-down needed.

But even as companies ponder eventual office reopenings, thousands have adapted to remotely working out of their homes, causing many to rethink the purpose of the workplace.

“We don’t really keep offices to deal with the work that we do,” Melissa Hanley, the CEO of design studio Blitz, told Business Insider. “So why do we go to the office?”

Where we do work is definitely shifting, said Hanley, whose firm has developed designs for the likes of Skype, Google, and Microsoft. Before the pandemic upended daily life, many did not have efficient work areas carved out of their homes, including those living in pint-sized spaces in the Bay Area.

“I do think it’s going to have a major impact in our homes,” she said. “I think about apartments in San Francisco — they don’t have space for home offices or at least a legitimate home office.”

That’s why Hanley said we could see an “urban flight” from dense, major cities. Many are rethinking their decision to live in such pricey, bustling places as the pandemic-driven shutdown spells the closure of desirable urban amenities like bars and museums, as Business Insider’s Aria Bendix reports.

“Maybe that’s not so bad, and I get way more for my money somewhere else,” Hanley said. “I can actually have that home office.”

That includes the Bay Area, where a trickle of fleeing residents had already formed in recent years as the exorbitant cost of living, soaring housing prices, and a low supply of homes have made it difficult for many to retain a lifestyle in the urban environment. 

Real-estate site Redfin found that San Francisco lost more residents than any other city in the US in the last quarter of 2017. A 2018 survey from the Bay Area Council advocacy group found that 46% of residents said they planned to leave the region. As for their reasons why, 45% of residents cited high living costs, and 27% cited rising housing prices. And a 2019 Brunswick Group survey of 300 tech workers in the Valley found that 41% of 18- to 34-year-olds planned to leave the region in the next year.

There’s even a Silicon Valley startup that offers tech workers a $10,000 stipend to leave the Bay Area and work remotely in coworking spaces outside the region.

Tech companies are tasked with incentivizing the best of the tech talent stock with high salaries, equity, and out-of-the-box job perks, like catered meals, bountiful snack assortments, and on-site exercise options. But it’s getting more difficult to convince workers that living in such a high-cost city is worth it.

Article source: https://www.businessinsider.com/pandemic-urban-flight-people-leaving-silicon-valley-coronavirus-2020-5

Due to COVID-19 the real estate market has been operating completely virtually in San Francisco for over a month, but come Monday that will change.

San Francisco Compass realtor Mary MacPherson has gotten her
listing property all set for interested buyers to see it in person, with hand
sanitizer and disclaimer forms at the ready. But the scene still looks very
different than what it normally is.

Forms need to be signed, masks and gloves need to be worn
and viewings will be staggered.

Local

MacPherson said that’s not all that has changed in real
estate.

“We can show homes virtually, and if it’s not feasible to
show it virtually we can do an in-person showing, provided that one agent only
is allowed to enter a house with up to two people from the sam sheltering
household,” she said.

Annie Baig, a realtor with Keller Williams Trivalley , said that they’re using no-touch showings as a way to safely let people view homes in person.

“We’re conducting a no-touch showing where we’re going in,
we’re not touching any doorknobs, we’re not opening any cabinets,” she said. “We’re
asking our sellers to make sure they turn the lights on, have the garage door
open, anything that best showcases the home…so we can walk in, walk out.”

Occupied properties can now also be shown. In order to show
these properties, agents will ask for a pre-approval letter and possibly other
documents to make sure viewers are serious about the process.

If agents do not comply with the safety guidelines, there
could be substantial fines for the listing agent.

Article source: https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/san-francisco/real-estate-industry-to-open-monday-with-new-restrictions/2283689/